With the success of The Social Network which snared him an Oscar
Aaron Sorkin is again likely to be one of LAs most coveted screenwriters. Yet amongst the glorious highpoints of his career there have been a few notable lows well-documented personal troubles, as well as grave artistic missteps. His televisual follow-up to The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, was cancelled (cruelly, in my view) midway through its debut season after failing ratings. And then came
Charlie Wilsons War the only thing the A Few Good Men scribe has ever written that I would actually call straight-up bad. Directed by the legendary
Mike Nichols, and starring
Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilsons War released on
Blu-ray earlier this week is a calamitous film: a stylistic mismatch that doesnt know whether its an earnest piece of patriotic shlock or a farce in the mould of Dr. Strangelove.
The film follows Texan congressman Charlie Wilson (Hanks) a heavy drinker and serial womaniser who takes the cause of the Afghan mujahideen as his own during their war with the Soviet Union during the 1980s, partly owing to the insistence of a wealthy Christian political lobbyist played by Roberts. Wilson soon becomes horrified that the American government and the CIA arent doing enough to help defeat the Soviet army, so he uses his political capital in Washington to continually raise the CIA's budget in order to aid the Afghans covertly eventually buying them the anti-aircraft missile launchers and automatic weapons they need to win their war. The congressmans more salacious side is played up throughout as we see the array of beautiful women he employs in his office (you can teach em to type but you cant teach em to grow tits), among them a no-nonsense secretary played by the ever-watchable
Amy Adams. There is also a minor role too for
Emily Blunt, as a woman seduced by the politicians charms.
Charlie Wilsons War combines the worst excesses of its three talented main properties to disheartening effect: Nichols as a director, Sorkin as a writer and Hanks as a comic character actor. In the latters case, Charlie is played as a goofy caricature, whilst Hanks affected Texan drawl tramples on Sorkins deft one-liners. It is reminiscent of his performance in The Ladykillers remake much more than it harkens back to his earlier comic heyday, in films like Splash and Big. The star is also said to have insisted upon the films horrendous, tacked on happy ending. Nichols is also an offender as the film is too relentlessly bright and cheerful no matter what is happening on screen. It often feels like a lost Blake Edwards sex comedy. This could be intentional of course to imply the film is an ironic statement on the action taking place. However, if this is the case its misjudged. For instance, as a visit to a refugee camp, which is supposed to horrify Wilson into action, lacks any visceral impact with its lack of darkness and rough edges. Its also such a cloying and heavy-handed affair as we see a sombre translator tell Charlie about small children who have lost limbs due to trying to pick up bombs disguised as toys a horrifying idea which is handled clumsily by the film. Worse still, Nichols bewilderingly uses real archive footage during a celebratory, fist-pumping montage of the downing of Soviet aircraft basically urging his audience to cheer at the death of real human beings (portrayed by the film as two-dimensional monsters but more on that to follow). I wonder how an American audience would feel about the use of similar footage from Iraq or Vietnam put to similar purpose?
Then there is the main culprit behind this mess: the writer. I bow for no one in my admiration of the first four seasons of The West Wing or more recently The Social Network (my second favourite film of the last year), however the bombast idealism and unpalatable, gung-ho patriotism that defined weaker episodes of his political drama is unfettered here. As is the rampant anti-communism of episodes like season twos Somebodys Going to Emergency, Somebodys Going to Jail. Also in evidence (though in a reduced capacity) is Sorkins wearisome berating of the Christian-right, an ever-present feature of the second half of Studio 60s short run. I say wearisome not because I disagree with Sorkin, but just because his regular, flippant digs are often unnecessary and come over as hectoring and often a little on the nose. Its moments such as those where you hear the writer speaking through his characters, at which point investment in them as people is all but lost. However, by far and away the worst thing about Charlie Wilsons War is the way it presents the only minor Russian characters a squadron of fighter pilots as vile, inhuman baddies. It makes for uncomfortable viewing as Nichols cuts between a missile launcher being aimed at an attack helicopter and its snarling Soviet pilot bragging about his infidelity and cackling (if he had a Dick Darstardly moustache he would doubtless be seen to twirl it). The helicopters are attacking a village of fleeing non-combatants, so I'm not morally outraged at the thought of them being shot down as an act of defence. But the way it is depicted is as tasteless as it is unnecessary. People die in war, but to revel that fact for entertainment demeans us all.
One of the few bright spots is Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who was rightly nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his energetic and attention-commanding (would you expect any less?) performance as CIA agent Gust Avrakotos - writer of the memoir upon which the film is based. The films few funny moments and one hundred per cent of its entertainment value comes as a direct result of the time Hoffman spends on screen. If you take the film as satirical (and it certainly is, at least in part) then maybe some of these things are forgivable. But with the film as it is - confused and unfunny - these issues totally cripple my capacity to enjoy it. The last-minute appeal to historical perspective in the post-9/11 world, presented in a scene which sees Wilson appeal for development aid without success after the Soviets withdraw, is rendered irrelevant by the cop-out, Star Wars-style ending. Ultimately it all comes across as a flag-waving exercise from a nation blithely ignoring its own muddy neo-colonial history which continues up to the time of writing.
Extras
There are no supplementary materials to speak of, unless you count those old DVD stalwarts interactive menus and scene access. Charlie Wilson's War was released on
Blu-ray this week.