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Slant's Ed Gonzalez weighs in on the film via the magazine's blog:

Ed Gonzalez wrote:Charlie Wilson's War (Mike Nichols). The good: The best Hollywood movie of the year to address the War on Terror, directly or indirectly. The bad: It's no great shakes. The graphic match between an alleyway in an Afghani village and a hallway in the Senate may be the ballsiest directorial move of Nichols's career, a sly illustration of how chaos and order in the world is inextricably tied to the legislative arm of our government. And yet, it all feels awfully glib—a tacky, live-action political cartoon, not unlike Primary Colors, that ends on an easy, finger-wagging note. But is Nichols telling us that we could have prevented 9/11 or that we deserved it? It seems to me that the film will be reviewed according to how critics chose to interpret that final scene.

From IMDB:

Subjects Win Battle Over 'Charlie Wilson's War'

The real life subjects of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts' new movie Charlie Wilson's War won a last ditch battle for the script to be changed, after claiming it blamed them for the September 11 terrorist attacks. The movie focuses on the roles of former congressman Charlie Wilson and his ex-fiancee Joanne Herring in helping to arm Afghanistani troops during the country's conflict with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Herring, played by Roberts in the film, claims she was stunned when she first read Aaron Sorkin's script for the movie, because it implied weapons sold to Afghanistan were used by Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda. Changes were demanded and granted ahead of the movie's Los Angeles premiere on Monday. The 78-year-old tells the New York Daily News, "Can you ever predict a war? The shelf life of a stinger missile is five years. There's no weapon we got them that can be used today." Herring also opposed to the way her character was represented as foul-mouthed, religious and sex-obsessed: "I didn't like the cursing, the drinking and the blatant sex. They turned me into a kooky hypocritical tart."

A kooky hypocritical tart played by Julia Roberts! Jeeez some people are never satisfied.

The theater was less than half full, but, it was clear all of us liked it. What I liked most was that somebody still knows how to tell a complete story in a mere 97 minutes. And ... when you get a believable view of how politics really works, and you get something to think about, and you chuckle all the way through at the wonderful dialogue ... then you may end up concluding that although Julia Roberts may be an easy target; you need to keep that Stinger missle aimed at something worth hitting - a goal the movie accomplishes nicely.

This quote from a negative review has me intrigued about this film now:

Nichols peppers the film with sex, beautiful women, booze and smoking...Written by Aaron Sorkin, the film plays with scene after scene of talk, talk, talk, while Nichols makes sure the actors are sitting in really interesting rooms. Indeed, the entire story is passed back and forth through the mouths of characters...

That sounds way more like a good "Mike Nichols film" than the press makes it out to be (the trailer made it seem so average). Combine that with the respect I have for Nichols, I'll certainly rent it, whenever it comes to DVD.

What a wonderful film to show that well-natured people (whatever that means), acting to what they think is best for other people, are still bumble-headed fools tinkering with history.

In a world where Oprah presents Obama as "the One to lead us out of darkness" (her words) and people revere Bush above all else, it's nice to see a smart, cynical piece about politicians.

It's certainly possible that Julia Roberts brought an actual human being out of her character, where anything less than a cartoonish evil fascist would be decried from certain forum-goers. Here she plays... well, not a neo-con. What's before that? A pre-o-con? Thinking she's doing the right thing by defeating Communism.

For this, she recruits a well-to-do partying liberal, and who can't relate to that? Charlie Wilson helps that rag-tag buncha underdogs win their war. And the scrappy group of holy warriors will never even know that most of the help came from the US and Israel (d'oh).

There's a wonderful scene where Phillip Seymour Hoffman, playing a disgruntled CIA agent with Afghanistan also as his pet project, reminds Wilson that the group of 14 year olds returning to this wasteland might spell trouble. It reminded me of the one successful scene in Bergman's The Serpent's Egg, where the experimenter forewarns Abel of what is brewing underneath the decadence of Germany.

So this all sounds like a depressing political talk-a-thon a la Lions For Lambs, but instead it's sharp, funny, and on point. Each joke is organic to the story, at a very tight 90-something minutes, and the film is postmodernism at it's best.

The film makes us all wary of faith, faith in what, faith in whom. Forget about the lost causes voting Republican in '08. If you're voting Democrat (the party of Charlie Wilson), what politician do you want meddling and contributing to the disasters of tomorrow - today? Mike Nichols commands this skewering of politicians, lobbying, and interventionism with unending wit.

Will buy on DVD, and there's never been a better time to be an isolationist.

Grand Illusion wrote:Here she plays... well, not a neo-con. What's before that? A pre-o-con?

"Paleocon" is the preferred nomenclature for that type of specimen.

If you're voting Democrat (the party of Charlie Wilson)

Texas Democrat in the late 70's. Hardly representative of much of anything except that time and (more importantly), place.

Armond's two cents, for what it's worth:

[quote]“You're Helen of Troy!â€

Someone needs to remind Armond that the story is true and proceeds in a believable manner. I want to see movies with a distinct point of view and if Mike Nichols' point of view is that of "privilege class sang-froid"; then Armond is missing his own point by concluding that this represents "apathy". What it represents is a filmmaker clearly in touch with the real people he is portraying.
And, why the unfavorable comparisons to four different movies about Iraq when that is not the subject of this movie?
The criticisms which may be valid are also pretty minor. The hot tubs, strippers, and buxom secretaries did seem a tad overdone, but, I'll take a few leggy babes with my politics any day. Armond offers this as evidence that Nichols "has no respect for tragedy or humanity". Ridiculous. The movie has a great point to make and is so enjoyable that I think I'll see it again tomorrow just to piss him off.

Belmondo wrote:The movie has a great point to make and is so enjoyable that I think I'll see it again tomorrow just to piss him off.

=D>

Belmondo wrote:I want to see movies with a distinct point of view and if Mike Nichols' point of view is that of "privilege class sang-froid"; then Armond is missing his own point by concluding that this represents "apathy". What it represents is a filmmaker clearly in touch with the real people he is portraying.

I think that is exactly the point Armond is making.

Whatever Nichols' ironies-within-ironies intent for this was, it's being heavily advertised as a Laff Riot With Heart.

With those two leads, that's probably the best move for the studio and their bottom line.

Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, An Imperialist Comedy:

...a top candidate for the most politically bizarre, consciously dumb film of our era.

This was a lot better than I was expecting. Basically a one-off the West Wing episode with swears-- and anyone who's read Sorkin's shooting scripts knows the man loves words he's never able to get on air! Hanks and Hoffman were predictably well-suited to the material, though Roberts' lays her role a little thick. Ned Beatty made me realize the man would be perfect playing Pat Robertson, where's that biopic? I do wish Amy Adams was given more to do than be the chipper assistant so common in Sorkin's work. I rarely judge films ideologically anyways but to do so for this film just seems ludicrous given how entertaining the dialog exchanges are-- it's not like there's a glut of films that can compete on this level

domino harvey wrote: Ned Beatty made me realize the man would be perfect playing Pat Robertson, where's that biopic?

He was certainly awesome playing an avatar of Dick Cheney in that other great political farce from 2007, Fuqua's absurdist "Shooter."

Worth it just to see the link for "His Special Buddy: This 7-Year-Old Boy Is Secretly Raising Ichiro In His Closet"

I'm pretty sure the main reason the Onion has been so terrible for so long now is because Clickhole has been redirecting all the funny writers to this shingle