Charlie Wilson’s War, Aaron Sorkin’s Movie
December 15, 2007 at 9:59 am
A rare night out for Extreme Mortman yesterday to attend the Washington screening of “Charlie Wilson’s War.” Thanks to the wonderful charity ThanksUSA — a non-partisan, charitable effort to mobilize Americans of all ages to “thank” the men and women of the United States armed forces by providing college, technical and vocational school scholarships for their children and spouses — we were able to see a movie we’ve long-anticipated. It was a generous event: fancy dinner at the fancy Motion Picture Association of America with fancy philanthropic people.
And how was the movie?
If you’re nostalgic for early ’80s DC and politics, this film is for you. It’s rare we get on-screen mentions of both Jack Murtha and Rudy Giuliani (Murtha makes out well, Giuliani becomes a punchline. And Doc Long, portrayed by Ned Beatty. Maryland political junkies will recognize Doc Long as Democrat Clarence “Doc” Long, who held Maryland’s 2nd Congressional district for years (and was a strong anti-communist with bucks to back it up) before turning the seat over to Republican Helen Bentley back in the mid-’80s.
And of course Charlie Wilson (played by Tom Hanks), the kind of free-spirited congressman who today we’d label libertarian merely because we don’t quite know how to categorize an America-loving Democrat who hates Communists and loves whiskey and allegedly the harder recreation stuff too and embraces free love and proudly staffs a Congressional office with fabulous Playboy-quality babes named “Jailbait.” He’s destined for the ethics committee — and for boosting funding on the covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan from $5 million to $1 billion.
“Let’s kill some Russians” is the movie’s rallying cry — a bit more straightforward than “Give me liberty or give me death.” More similar to the “Red Dawn” heroic cry “Wolverines!”
The movie provides just a glancing mention of Massoud, the greatest of the Afghan freedom fighters. Massoud does not merit an on-screen portrayal. It’s a short movie — beefing up Massoud’s portrayal would have been well worth the extra time. And it would have given an uplifting story and face to contrast with all the faceless poor souls at the refugee camps at the Afghan/Pakistan border — many horribly disfigured from Soviet mines.
Sorkin’s overly whimsical writing is on steroids in this one. Sorkin’s style has transitioned from trademark and distinctive to annoying and farcical. And his heavy touch with music absolves the audience of any requirement to think for themselves.
Despite that, it’s a wonderful rush to get caught up again in classic anti-Communist fervor. We won that one. It’s a great feeling hopefully we’ll never soon forget — and an unmistakable contrast with today’s war.
Sorkin brings us to the end of Wilson’s tale with thick messaging on how America’s involvement in pushing out the Communists from Afghanistan ends up bringing in the Taliban, in essence sparking and fueling the terrorists who would later do us harm. We should have replaced weapons funding with schools funding, the movie lectures us.
It makes you angry seeing Sorkin end the movie that way. And it makes you even angrier knowing he’s right.
Morton Thurston III said,
December 15, 2007 @ 1:23 pm
Nonsense! America is not responsible for the advent of the Taliban or the Islamic terrorists. That’s just left wing prattle.
yak said,
December 15, 2007 @ 2:56 pm
If we would have funded the schools instead of the weapons, the Russians would still be there.
boris said,
December 15, 2007 @ 3:05 pm
Fund the schools? Gosh if that’s all it takes why didn’t we try that in Iraq? No quagmire no Al Qaeda no problems.
Too bad Sorkin didn’t run for president instead of Kerry.
Glenn Kenny said,
December 15, 2007 @ 3:09 pm
You can’t blame Sorkin for the music—writers don’t have any say as to what the music sounds like, how much of it is used, or where. That’s between the director—who in this case is Mike Nichols—and the composer, James Newton Howard.
anonymous said,
December 15, 2007 @ 3:09 pm
So the rise of the Taliban was the fault of a Democrat, and not Ronald Reagan and/or the C.I.A.?
Becky said,
December 15, 2007 @ 3:53 pm
Thanks for saving me $6.50. I go to movies to see action or be uplifted. I’ll go to a church if I want someone to preach at me.
Hubert Goldwater said,
December 15, 2007 @ 3:56 pm
I also viewed a preview of Charley Wilson’s War and liked it. Sorkin is a little tiresome, label-happy and shallow but Hanks is wonderful, Hoffman was vastly entertaining and Julia Roberts was delightful.
Early in the movie there is a superfluous dig at the Christian right to establish Wilson’s liberal bona fides but Sorkin seems to get most of it our his system then. There is a dig at Stansfield Turner but not a single mention of Jimmy Carter and the foreign policy flaccidity that led to the Soviet invasion of Afganistan. The passivity of the intelligence and diplomatic establishment Sorkin tries to conflate with Ronald Reagan (a neat mental trick).
Hoffman’s character as a tough real spy in conflict with the namby pamby bureaucrats is reminiscent of how much Hollywood liberals admire anti-ACLU, anti-Miranda cops as fictional characters but despise them in reality. It was also amazing to see the Soviets portrayed as bad guys without nuance, qualification or wordy moral equivalence. Liberals like Sorkin did not do that while that war was going on. Better late than never.
It is a very solidly enjoyable flick. I hope it is successful.
epobirs said,
December 15, 2007 @ 4:14 pm
Preventing the Taliban or similar faction from taking over Afghanistan in post-Soviet era would have been impossible. Just in terms of investment it would have been impossible to sell to the US electorate. Awareness of what had happened in Afghanistan and the role it played in breaking the Soviets was pretty minimal and still is among those who don’t actively follow international events. I remember in the days following 9/11 a remarkable number of people appeared to be hearing there was such a thing as the Taliban for the first time. Today, much of the public doesn’t know enough of recent history to know that this movie has a grounding in real events.
So try to imagine, during the 1992 presidential campaign, candidates trying to tell the public we had to pump some big bucks into Afghanistan, along with a major military commitment. Without some serious firepower support anyone we sent to try to oppose the Taliban via education would have been killed off in short order.
Such has always been the way of things. Victory has followup costs but the voters are rarely willing to pay. The reconstruction of Europe and Japan following WWII is one of the rare times the victors got it right.
Ed said,
December 15, 2007 @ 4:40 pm
The Mujahedeen we supported in the 80’s did not become the Taliban. After the Russians left, the various Mujahedeen groups we sponsored began fighting among themselves for power. Afghanistan transitioned into civil war. Pakistan wanted to end the chaos on their border, so they sponsored a political movement started by madrassa students from Pakistan. That movement became the Taliban. The Taliban came into Afghanistan, allied with some Mujahedeen groups, and partially defeated the other groups. The remaining Mujahedeen groups formed a competing alliance against the Taliban and retained control of about 25% of the country. Those Mujahedeen, called the Northern Alliance, are the forces we teamed up with after 911 to defeat the Taliban. Read History.
jum1801 said,
December 15, 2007 @ 4:59 pm
“Fund the schools”? Please - we were each the enemy of the other’s enemy; and we both knew it. But let’s suppose that could have happened - exactly who was controlling funding from sometime around the extinction of the dinosaurs until 1994? I don’t even need to say it.
Pixelkiller said,
December 15, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
The movie is never as good as the book. Not ever! If you really want to know what was happening in Afganistan then, (during and beneath Iran-contra), read the GD book! The book is good.
Tom W. said,
December 15, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
We’ve been funding the schools in South Central Los Angeles, Compton, Detroit, the Bronx, East Philadelphia, Miami, New Orleans, etc., for decades.
And look how peace, prosperity, love, and tolerance have broken out in those places.
Ken Hahn said,
December 15, 2007 @ 6:12 pm
Please explain how we could have funded schools in Soviet controlled Afghanistan. Or id you pour more money into the failed teacher union run schools here?
John said,
December 15, 2007 @ 6:24 pm
>>> If we would have funded the schools instead of the weapons, the Russians would still be there.
Succinctly put. The reason we sent guns and not books is because books wouldn’t have defeated the Soviets. And if we had built schools after the Soviets left, all it would have meant is that the Taliban had the nicest Madrassas on the continent courtesy of the US taxpayers.
I reject the notion that we have to bribe every nation on earth with social programs in order for them to leave us alone. The threat that we will come there and kill them if they don’t is sufficient.
Alec said,
December 15, 2007 @ 8:04 pm
He’s right? You have got to be kidding.
MKO said,
December 15, 2007 @ 8:16 pm
I love Extreme Mortman’s turn into a movie critic!
joel mackey said,
December 15, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
Charlie Wilson was a yellow dog democrat, or a jfk democrat if you like, in the zell miller mold. not a libertarian.
Rob said,
December 16, 2007 @ 12:41 am
Havent seen the movie.
But have read the book.
What I found there was off the wall, but true
in those parts I had direct knowledge of.
Remember the Afghans, with our help
lost hundreds of thousands in that war
against the Soviets, defeated the USSR
and won us the Cold War.
We owe them thanks.
Charles Ganske said,
December 16, 2007 @ 1:25 am
This was a very good movie showing the war from the Soviet side.
John Bono said,
December 16, 2007 @ 12:31 pm
Am I the only person here who finds it amazing that it only took 16 years after Communism was consigned to the dustbin of history for Hollywood to finally make a movie where the Commies were unambiguously the bad guys? No, Red Dawn doesn’t count. Remember, the Nicarauguan Commie was a sympathetic character. Not only that, how many movies/tv series etc were made where the we had to get along with the Russkies, that the cold war was a giant misunderstanding, etc.
It is nice that Hollyweird made a movie where the Russians were the bad guys. However, this movie was made about 20 years after everyone else had already figured that out.
At this rate, about 20 years after the Iranians overthrow the ayatollahs and hang Ahmadinejad from the nearest lamp post, maybe we’ll get a movie showing jihadis as they really are too, of course, by that time, we’ll get a Michael Moore movie about how much of a paradise it is to live in North Korea, complete with kite flying.
Bandit said,
December 17, 2007 @ 9:41 am
Could a movie have possibly been more miscast? And of course - it was a liberal whose sister was the head of Planned Parenthood and Tip O’Neill when he wasn’t robbing the coffers to pay for the Big Dig who brought down the USSR - certainly not that B-movie actor as you might have heard
Gary said,
December 17, 2007 @ 12:18 pm
So, a congressman runs US foreign policy — no wonder Hollywood is making itself irrelevant.
will said,
December 23, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
Watching this protrayal of history through the prism of liberal filmmakers make me long for a wing of Hollywood to ermerge with a thirst for America’s First Principles. First, they have to sell Charley Wilson as a liberal so they can claim in his heriocs that he was really one of them. Then they have to ignore altogether any mention of Ronald Reagan who overrode most of his staff, nearly all of the Congress, the then-current thinking of the CIA and even the Penatagon to fund the stinger missle for the Afgan Freedom Fighters. A more accurate plot point would have been to have depicted all Charley’s great efforts towards defeat of the invading Soviets as hopelessy lost until that lone penstroke by Reagan, and a parallel to many Reagan would do along the road to American victory of the cold war.