CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR (2007)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Mike Nichols

SCREENWRITER: Aaron Sorkin

FILM STARS: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams,, Emily Blunt, Ned Beatty, Denis O’Hare, John Slattery.

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: George Crile

TYPE: Non Fiction

PUBLISHER: Grove Press

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 2003

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 2003

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History (later titled Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times)

NOTES

GENRE: Satire

WORDS:  A political satire or a biopic or both? Both.

Hollywood turns out these small sharp political satires often … and, usually, because they are political they will come under scrutiny so they have to be well crafted, well written, with stars, and with satire that is sharp, preferably ambivalent, but if pointed not too sharp, and definitely not soap boxy … Bob Roberts (1992), Primary Colors (1998), Wag the Dog (1997), The Campaign (2012), Vice (2018) and the more difficult Bulworth (1998).

We are not in an era of (movie) soapboxes where films agitated to confront you or change your mind. We are in an era where issues and social mores are not explored. There is just black and white, no soapbox needed.

The world was no less complex or less nuanced in the 1930s and 1940s where you had preachy films but with an 80 year old film you have the comfort of distance from the film, the events, the issues. You are further emotionally from the film. It is easier to treat the world in black and white, or shades thereof. If you watched the film when it came out I suspect your reaction to it would be vastly different to watching it now. Such is time, memory, and life as a person expands or contracts with time. Viewpoints can become diluted or firmer with whatever happens to the person in the intervening years. And different things happen to different people. The fog of time makes everything a little more acceptable.

A film dealing with contemporary issues nowadays has to have all its ducks in a row and inevitably it will still fail with some of the public because a political or social film can never ever address all the issues adequately. There are a thousand viewpoints on the same issue and ones that are clear and firm (as they always are with recent events) to the holder. Putting the input of money lenders to one side do you angle a film to a demographic, to everyone or just not give a shit?

If you make it a satire you negate some of the criticism and limit some of the negative views. It’s a comedy, it’s meant to be irreverent. The viewer who may have found the film offensive is appeased.

If you set film in the past or make the film about past events with some of it’s satire pointing to contemporary events, you further dilute any angry alternative point of view.

This you do when you look for a wide audience.

None of that means you have a bad film but you will have a safe one. And, there is nothing wrong with that. The film can still entertain, make you laugh, make you shake your head in in disbelief at the events shown, but not make one angry at the message the film is selling or make one angry with the received and accepted message.

Charlie Wilson’s War is that film.

The true story of a US Democratic congressman and ladies man, who loved to party, drink and take drugs, who never took things seriously (the press called him “Good Time Charlie”) who teams up with a CIA officer in a covert operation to supply weapons to the Afghan mujahideen for 13 years during the Soviet–Afghan War with very little government oversight, is a story waiting to be made (and a very long sentence).

To make it as comedy or, rather, a satire is necessary. If played as a drama it would be ludicrous. It doesn’t go over the top which would put it in Dr Strangelove (1964) territory but it is broad enough to make one laugh.

Like many Hollywood political satires in our recent era it has a lot going for it though with inbuilt faults. It is:

• well written, literate and liberal, though a little bland. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin wrote A Few Good Men (1992), The Social Network (210), Steve Jobs (2015), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020).
• well directed by Mile Nicholls (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The Graduate (1967), Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), The Day of the Dolphin (1973), The Fortune (1975), Silkwood (1983), Biloxi Blues (1988), Working Girl (1988), Regarding Henry (1991), The Birdcage (1996), Primary Colors (1998)), whose last film this was, and who is a great director, literate and liberal but defiantly New York middle class.
• well acted. Tom Hanks can act and his likability means he can play the man caught in unusual circumstances convincingly though he tends to be squidgy and soft in the centre. Julia Roberts is gorgeous, especially when being sultry as she is here and Philp Seymour Hoffman steals scenes as he always does. There is good support from Amy Adams, Ned Beatty, Emily Blunt.

It all works well enough though, still, I wish it was sharper … if Billy Wilder (and I. A. L. Diamond) had directed and written it …. aaahhh.

The film did well with the critics and at the box office.

The book by journalist George Crile (who knew Charlie Wilson) was a best seller when released in 2003. A real life congressman (still alive at the time), a post 9-11 world, with discussion on the middle east, on US defence spending,  on secret CIA operations and on Washington shenanigans it was bound to work. The book is not a satire. The film telescoped and truncated the book, as is always the case, but remained true to events and characters.

The film is fun to watch but, maybe, only once. The book is interesting for those interested n US involvement in the middle east especially on how to get it wrong. One take away is if you help someone liberate themselves from their oppressors it is wise to help them rebuild their country. You would have thought the Americans already knew that following the Marshall Plan, though here if the war was largely covert … how can you help rebuild that which you have, err, not contributed to defeating?

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