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Politics. Congressmen who drink and consume drugs, while hiring an army of Playboy like assistants. Who go to Las Vegas and get wasted in a tub with naked women and use some coke to make it all better. Who sometimes vote, when it’s something interesting, then just waste time and look good. That’s of course, when the press don’t hear about their late hot nights when they break all the laws possible.

Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is no stranger to this life. He’s been elected as a Texas liberal Democrat congressman and his life is simple and good. His staff is made up by voluptuous women, he’s filling some of his lonely nights with the right-wing Houston millionaire socialite Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), who is now alarmed of the attacks over Afghanistan by the Russian army. The USA cannot intervene officially, that’s for sure, but there’s gotta be a way to help the Afghans who are slaughtered like cattle by the aviation raids and the bombs planted on the ground.

The movie is based on George Crile’s book, published in 2003 and it looks like this Charlie Wilson is not a fictional character. Which of course will surely give us great confidence in our politicians.

So, back to the action.

Since they cannot send money and weapons without turning the “cold war” into a very nasty “normal” one, the USA have to look for another way. Because Joanne won’t settle with a “no” and Charlie, after a visit to a refugee camp in Afghanistan is so shaken he’s almost lost interest in late night boozing.

They need the help of the CIA and, since falling from his superior’s grace (after breaking the office window and impolitely asking the boss to f.. himself), Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) doesn’t really have anything better to do, so he’s willing to support the cause.

The USA would have all the logistics, but they cannot afford to have any weapons marked “USA” in Afghanistan, so they need Soviet weapons. Paying for this is not an issue. From 5 to 10 million it takes just a meeting and people don’t really pay attention to what they are voting on. This is how Charles Wilson, as part of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, can get funding just with a call. Again, yet another showcase of how things are done by the people elected to guard the public interest.

Since the Israelis do have a lot of guns and could send them to Afghanistan through Pakistan, the only predicament is they cannot really be convinced to work together. Not to mention not even the Afghan people can know how they got helped. This is where Gust comes in handy. He knows the right Israeli guy to help them.

Charlie runs his little show from the shadow while also escaping arrest for coke-consuming in Las Vegas. How does he do it? The witness claims she’s seen him consuming in the Cayman Islands, out of the US jurisdiction. So, even if a proved sinner, he cannot be convicted.

This is the kind of politician he is. This is the kind many of them are. Still, when it comes to winning his secret war, Charlie did rise to the occasion. He was able to raise $1 billion to help with the war logistics. Still, the moment all was solved and the Afghan people could have used schools (half their population was under 14), the USA representatives who got involved in raising that billion, couldn’t be convinced to raise 1 million. Or, as Charlie had said:

These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world… and then we fucked up the endgame.

Even if a biographical political drama, the movie does have his funny scenes and is easy to watch, even by people who couldn’t care less about wars and politics. The cast is quite good and the 3 main actors are performing as expected. Totally recommended.

June 23rd, 2010 | Biography | No Comments »