The War in Afghanistan continues

So I finally watched a movie that I can write about. HBO finally showed "Charlie Wilson's War." I enjoyed this movie when I saw it in the theaters and I committed myself to seeing it either on DVD or cable when it was made available. Well, HBO had been showing teaser previews of it since late September and I looked forward to finally catching it again.

Full disclosure. I like the movie because I like almost anything that Aaron Sorkin is involved in. He came on the scene as the writer of "A Few Good Men," a movie that has become one of the more quotable military movies of late, if only for the dynamite performance of Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise. He went on to write "Sport Night," a tv show which introduced us to witty, intelligent, meaningful, funny dialogue in his what would become characteristic staccato style. Somewhere in there he wrote, "An American President," a movie starring Annette Benning dating the widowed President, Michael Douglas. Then he had a seven year run of "West Wing," on TV. Admittedly, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," left a little of his usual magic behind. Still I enjoyed that TV show while it was on the air.

I am a sucker for good writing and "Charlie Wilson's War," delivered in spades. The basic plot is that it is the mid-eighties. The Soviet Union has invaded Afghanistan. The U.S is providing minimal backing to the Afghans, the enemies of our enemies. Tom Hanks as the title character, Charlie Wilson, is a lecherous, reprobate of a congressman. I suppose that that is redundant. But Wilson wears his lasciviousness a little more exposed on his sleeve than do most congressman. He has been elected from a district which wants nothing and has elected him five times. He gets to say yes to many other congressman and not piss off his constituents. He has built up many favors owed to him. He has also gotten himself on the crossroads of the Congressional committees of Defense and Budget. And the sub-committee on covert ops. He is able to assist in the approval of covert defense spending.

He feels a pang of guilt that the U.S. is not funding the Afghans better. Prodded by a wealthy matron, portrayed by Julia Roberts, in his district he begins assessing how he can funnel money to a covert war in Afghanistan. In this pursuit he meets Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character, Gust Avrakatos. Gust is a lecherous, reprobate of a CIA operative working Washington, D.C. He is slovenly and doesn't give a crap about the politics of the place. He has pissed off his boss and now is looking for something to do. He seizes on the opportunity to pursue helping the Afghans. These two characters, Wilson and Avrakatos, couldn't be more perfect for one another.

Tom Hanks gives one of the better performances of his career. Now that he has thrown off the mantle of always having to play likable characters, he can stretch a little more in his performances and explore more nuanced characters. But Phillip Seymour Hoffman is brilliant. I have always admired him as an actor. He rarely gives a bad performance. He just is usually in such offbeat films that I don't see much of him. Well he not only pays the bills by being in a large studio film, he delivers a memorable performance.

The pivotal scene in the movie, the one which I will watch repeatedly in the coming years and memorize lines of, is when the two men first meet. Charlie Wilson has called for a CIA Deputy Director or above to his office so that he can discuss his plans to get funding into the hands of the Afghans. Instead he gets Gust Avrakatos, a low level, pudgy, malcontent. Wilson is not happy. Avrakatos assuages his anger by presenting him with a gift of really good scotch. Wilson, a frequent imbiber among his many vices, is placated. Just then a crisis develops in Wilson's office. Rudy Guiliani, yes that Rudy Guiliani, is a Federal Prosecutor looking into Congressional misconduct and Charlie Wilson has been implicated. Gust is asked to leave while Wilson's comely assistants talk to Charlie about how their office should respond to the charges. This happens a couple times. The cute assistants barge in and Gust is asked to leave. Finally Avrakatos is invited back in. As he is sitting down he mentions that Wilson should make sure that the limo driver from one of Charlie's escapades is told to keep quiet or at least Charlie should find out what the limo driver knows. Wilson is livid. Was Avrakatos listening at the door as he discussed his private business with his assistants. No, Gust bugged the scotch bottle. Well all right now lets get back to business. And Wilson offers Avrakatos a drink of the very scotch that had been bugged. I haven't written any of the dialogue here, but suffice to say it is brilliant. As is the pace of the scene and how it is shot.

What I like most about that entire scene is the ethos involved. While Wilson was probably rightfully indignant, possibly incensed, he didn't let the indiscretion of the scotch bottle bugging get in the way of taking care of what he called the meeting for. He and Gust completed their discussion of how to begin funding the Afghans. Charlie Wilson also saw to immediately enjoying the scotch. It is the understanding that we are all flawed, pursuing our own agendas. We occasionally dupe each other, but when we have shared agendas it is best to just let the anger die and get on with accomplishing our objective. And if we do all that with a sense of humor, so much the better. This movie, in the final analysis, didn't hold up either Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character or Tom Hanks' character as heroes. They are both disreputable. And they far from acted with pure intent. But they accomplished a good thing. Eventually the Soviets got sick of being blown up by U.S supplied weapons and they left Afghanistan. They also eventually failed completely and both the Soviet Union and in fact the entire Eastern Bloc bloc was broken. The Berlin Wall tumbled and former totalitarian Communist countries converted to capitalistic democracies. That movement continues today.

The movie ends on a prescient note, foreshadowing the implications we feel in today's world. And here it may be too preachy. It is well and good to say, "I knew that would happen," twenty years after the fact, but contextually that message seems contrived. Anyway the parting shot of the movie is; the U.S. should have continued to fund the Afghans, rebuilding schools and infrastructure instead of solely concentrating on rebuilding Eastern Europe. For without the needed U.S. funding, the Islamic fundamentalist came in, filled the void by building madrases, and started this whole Taliban/Al Quaida thing. And here we sit with 170,000 soldiers in Afghanistan today. I don't know. In a sense, we should have seen some of this coming, but really we wanted to get our hooks into Eastern Europe to make sure those countries fully broke from the Soviet grip. And really there is only so much foreign aid money.

Anyway. Good movie. Incredible performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Tom Hanks continues on his journey to be a serious actor.

Matthew