OK, last Philip Seymour Hoffman movie for a while. He’s a great actor and all, but he’s such a dominating presence in everything that he’s in that I feel like we need some time apart.
Charlie Wilson’s War is the story of how Congressman Charlie Wilson, a wealthy Texas woman, and a mid-level CIA agent managed to covertly plan and secure the resources to help Afghani militias defeat the invading Soviet army.
The story of the film is interesting, but I’d be lying if I said that the plot was strong enough to stand up to Charlie’s three stars, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and PSH.
Tom Hanks ventures a little bit away from his typical role to play Charlie Wilson, the hard partying, smooth talking, ladies’ man of a Texas congressman. If that description leads you to believe that this is more than “a little bit” of a departure, you may have to watch the movie to understand. To use movie rating terms, Charlie Wilson’s flaws are portrayed more in “suggestive” or “adult” themes than specific displays. I think if there was anyone else playing this role but Tom Hanks, it would have been significantly more “R” rated than it already was. All that being said, Hanks does do a good job with the role. He has the sort of superstar presence that is necessary to make Wilson’s mystique believable.
I’m really not a Julia Roberts fan at all, and her role here, as Joanne Herring, did nothing to change that. I understand that Herring, a Bible-beating, arrogant, and fabulously wealthy woman, must have had a pretty big personality, but Roberts does some serious overacting. I really found the character to be very unlikable, and I don’t think that I was supposed to.
Hoffman was nominated for the “Best Supporting Actor” Oscar for his role as Gust Avrakotos and really was the film’s brightest star. The mustache he’s sports is more than a little ridiculous, but if you can look past it there is a really great performance to be found. He plays a lifelong CIA agent who has, to a certain degree, torpedoed his own chances at advancement by being significantly more blunt in his critiques of his superiors than he likely should have. Hoffman deftly displays the blue-collar mannerisms, speech patterns, and edginess that were necessary to bring Avrakotos to life on the screen.
Apart from the performances of Hoffman and Hanks, the film’s main strength is in the dialogue. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, Sports Night, A Few Good Men) provides the cast with a plethora of terrific lines. Although Hoffman and Hanks get the majority of the great lines, Sorkin spreads them around, even giving a few to Charlie’s team of sexy office assistants (including one of my new personal favorites, Shiri Appleby, who looks like a combination of Jamie Lynn Sigler and Emmanuelle Chriqui).
As far as criticisms go, I only have a couple. I wish that they would have given us a little bit more time with Wilson away from the war. They didn’t need to stray too far from the topic, but I think we could have used a few more examples of Charlie’s personality or pushed the envelope a bit further with those that we are given. Also, I wish they would have gone a little more in depth in what happened after the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan. I felt like the movie ended too abruptly.
These are minor concerns, though, and I would still recommend Charlie Wilson’s War to most people. It is worth seeing for Hoffman’s performance alone, and has a much broader popular appeal than either of his previous two movies I reviewed, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and The Savages. This is a movie that you can watch with just about anyone because there is something for everyone to enjoy. Beside some brief nudity in the opening scenes, this is even something that I’d feel comfortable picking out to watch with my parents if I was back home.
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