Charlie Wilson's War

Mike Nichols has assembled quite an A-list cast here, but with the possible exception of Philip Seymour Hoffman it really doesn't deliver as well as I'd hoped. Tom Hanks is the eponymous Texas congressmen who enjoys his time on Capitol Hill, attending it's parties and indulging in whatever is offered - legal or otherwise. He's an uncontentious individual so sits on numerous committees - largely on the understanding that he doesn't do anything! Unfortunately for him, one of his major donors (Julia Roberts) has been appalled by the treatment of the civilian population of Afghanistan at the hands of the Soviets. She wants something done to help them, and he is the man she expects to deliver. He does manage to get the CIA's meagre budget for the area doubled, but when assured that won't make much difference and then egged on by agency expert Gust Avrakotos (Hoffman), he engages in a rather complex mission with Pakistan and Israel - determined foes - to supply the Mujahaddin with weaponry capable of evening up the odds against invaders with complete air supremancy and little interest in where their missiles actually land. Of course, whilst he is now fully galvanised by the task in hand, he doesn't quite appreciate that his is but one part of a complex and lengthy strategy and that even with the budget now running at a billion dollars, there are no easy wins - for anyone. Meantime, he has to do a little firefighting with the media at home who have shown a little interest in his extra-curricular activities - all the more apposite as he is fighting to obtain freedom for a population who are no strangers to opiates. Hanks isn't maybe the best actor for this role - I'd have loved to see Gene Hackman do it, but he works well enough with the pithy Sorkin script and the on-form Hoffman as they scheme their way to an unlikely alliance that illustrates well just how much of a jigsaw puzzle their task was, and was always going to remain. I also thought this rather potently spotlighted the failings of long term American foreign policy and of it's reliance on local allies whose agenda could quite literally change on the turn of a card and whose information was often as incorrect as it was unreliable. It's an enjoyable film that might encourage further investigation into it's pretty harrowing topics whilst reminding us that many of our elected representatives are little better than useless.