Tom Hanks is not sure if Charlie Wilson’s War will be a success.
We saw it the night before last, and have to say it was excellent. The Aaron Sorkin / West Wing style works really well with Hanks and Seymour-Hoffman bouncing the Washington one-liners and press-statements off each other and the close-combat camera. And some great cinematography too – in scenes like the Peshawar refugee camps. The in-your-face “let’s kill some Russians” undercurrent (if that’s not an oxymoron) seems strange, but is already a sign of the pre-fall-of-Berlin-wall times.
Some tongue-in-cheek license with the characters and the plot detail I’m sure in the “based-on-a-true-story” style, but really well done.
Glorious …. but we fucked-up the end game.
Nuff said. It occurred to me whilst I was watching it that I was in Pakistan (Baluchistan province) near the Afghan border during the latter period of the film – early / mid 80’s – must check the dates. The Pashtun refugees and the local Bughtis at the tribal checkpoints were all proudly brandishing their Kalashnikovs, booty from the Soviet-Afhgan war, but it had never occurred to me that the Russian weapons had been supplied to the Afghans by the US via Israeli and Egyptian intermediaries. Believable.