CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR (15)

9:29am Wednesday 23rd January 2008

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SET in the early 1980s this film is based on the true story of hard drinking womaniser Charlie Wilson, who also had a penchant for coke. He was the liberal Democrat congressman from Texas said to have been totally responsible for organising the biggest undercover operation in the history of the United States. This involved supplying the Afghan Mujahideen with arms during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the success of which unfortunately was the beginning of a very tricky future for the Afghan nation.

We are introduced to Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) as he cavorts in a Jacuzzi with three girls of dubious backgrounds and lots of cocaine. But his concentration is also firmly fixed on the mounted television, where Dan Rather is announcing that the Russians have invaded Afghanistan. Charlie's occasional lover Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), the sixth richest women in Texas, is totally against communism, and sees Charlie, as he is on the Defence Appropriations Subcommittee, as a way of helping the poor Afghans. The right wing socialite tells him that the Afghans badly need weapons, if they are to have a chance of defeating the better-equipped Russians. This is not easy, as it would be a disaster if American weapons were found in Afghanistan. A plan is hatched to get the Israelis to take their many anti aircraft weapons via Parkistan to Afghanistan. Charlie chums up with chippy CIA agent Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who is about the only man who can really help him. And then he sets about calling in favours to up the useless $5 million a year the US government were supplying the Afghan freedom fighters, to a much more realistic one billion.

The script by Aaron Sorkin is mostly sharp and witty, and under the deft hand of director Mike Nichols the film tells a story that is at once interesting and entertaining -though many might consider it a trifle light for such a serious subject. Whether it is all Gospel is anyone's guess, but the real life freedom fighter Mrs. Herring says it is and she was after all there; it is well worth checking her out on the Internet. There is a remarkable photograph of her with the Mujahideen. Roberts is badly cast, you never get beyond her ghastly wig and fancy attire, and she can't match the real Mrs Herring for beauty either. Whereas Hanks is back on great form, after his unfortunate foray in the perfectly dreadful The Da Vinci Code (2006). Here he gets under the skin of Wilson making you understand how he managed to charm everyone he met: it's a most engaging performance. Needless to say Seymour Hoffman is excellent as the vulgar CIA operative, but sadly everyone else's characters are badly underdeveloped, in particularly the lovely Amy Adams as Charlie's assistant. She is on the screen quite a lot, but we never learn anything about her, as there is no depth to her lines. The story's main problem is, unlike this month's The Kite Runner, you can't feel and smell what it would be like to be in Afghanistan. The story doesn't involve one enough and the editing is choppy. That said this is still well worth venturing out for.

Clare Shepherd 7/10