Charlie Wilson's War is a highly enjoyable film, with some pretty tame performances from some wonderful actors.
Word on the street is that director Mike Nichols strayed pretty far away from Aaron Sorkin's script. Having not read that original script myself, I find it quite disheartening that Nichols felt the need to chop this film to a speedy 97 minutes instead of including, what is by all accounts, a darker story.
Hanks and Hoffman are likable enough, but their characters just don't get fleshed out. Supposedly the real Charlie Wilson had quite the drinking problem, which caused the man some serious problems as he was fighting communism behind closed doors. The only evidence of this is Hanks constantly having a drink in his hand. We don't get to see the ramifications of his problem.
Also, around the time of the film's release there was some talk over how there was no mention as to how America supplying these weapons lead to 9/11 and the rise of intense fundamentalist groups. There is mention of this covert operation backfiring and the film ends with a quote from the real Wilson saying, "...we fucked up the end game." But it's a few scenes towards the end of the film were Hanks' eyes are just filled with guilt and despair over not getting to finish what he had started in Afghanistan.
Now I don't want to sit here and just crap on the film, I'm glad I took an hour and a half to watch it. It's a funny 90 minutes and doesn't do much pulling on the heart strings. Totally worth your $2.50 at Family Video or $9 at Blockbuster.
No comments:
Post a Comment