Charlie Wilson's War: ****
Nonna's Rating: $$$$
Phillip Seymour Hoffman is reason enough to see Charlie Wilson’s War. A truly marvelous actor with the malleability of Robert DeNiro. Think of Capote, Magnolia, The Savages, and Boogie Nights. In Charlie Wilson’s War, Hoffman steals every scene he’s in – and he’s usually in scenes with Tom Hanks and/or Julia Roberts. Both of them, by the way, deliver fine performances in this film. Hoffman plays a CIA maverick, an operative so far down in the bowels of The Company that he really doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks of him – including U.S. Congressmen.
The movie is only about 90 minutes long, and it moves at a rapid pace, aided by snappy dialogue and rapid fire exchanges reminiscent of movies like His Girl Friday. And the dialogue is that good, thanks to the writing of Aaron Sorkin and the directing of Mike Nichols. I wanted to see the movie again just catch all the witty repartee -- and I just did. My Seabury friend Kristin and I are off on “Plunge,” a two week trip for future priests in which we immerse ourselves in the daily life of a church somewhere in these United States (we’re in DC). We decided to take a break tonight, have a quick dinner at Maggiano’s, and go see a movie. Washington insider movies almost always fascinate and even more so when you’re watching them in The District as we were. We’re staying with a couple whose next door neighbor knew Charlie Wilson. We’ll be having dinner with her on Sunday. That’s something to look forward to.
In the meantime, we have a delightful, funny, thought-provoking movie in Charlie Wilson, a much better movie than Atonement (sorry, Golden Globes). The movie focuses on the U.S.’s clandestine involvement in the war fought by Afghan rebels against the Soviets. When they movie finishes, there are no postscripts, no what-happened-to-so-and-so words flying across the screen. We’re not even reminded that the weapons we supplied to the Afghans became the weapons of the Taliban that are still being used against our troops. We don’t hear a narrator tell us that our failure to invest in education and infrastructure in Afghanistan and its consequences is similar to our failure to do the same in Iraq with its consequences. We’ve been told enough when Hoffman’s character says, “We’ll see.”
Nonna Rating System:
$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price
$$ = Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it
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