The Weekly Standard:
In Charlie Wilson's War, a Democratic member of the House decides to do what he can to aid the Afghan rebels fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. It turns out that what he can do is plenty, because of his position on two congressional subcommittees. He helps engineer an increase in funding from $5 million to $500 million, and teams up with CIA analysts and covert operatives to determine what weaponry the rebels need and how to get it to them. In every way, he is successful. The rebels win.
"Charlie Wilson's War
is based, as they say, on a true story, though it inflates the importance of its likeably raffish title character. That isn't really a problem; this is a movie, after all, and it stars Tom Hanks, and if Tom Hanks is going to play a relatively unknown congressman from Texas, you can be sure the congressman secretly saved the world. Considering how much it gets right, Charlie Wilson's War can be forgiven this excess. As an inside peek at the workings of the Capitol Hill sausage factory, it's easily the best thing of its kind since Advise and Consent--far more accurate about the ways of Washington than its screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's account of the inner life of the White House on the West Wing television show.
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