Charlie Wilson's War
Directed by Mike Nichols
Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
With Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman
On video & DVD
Seeing the posters for the film Charlie Wilson's War, along with the "liberal" credentials of its lead actors (in particular Tom Hanks who plays Wilson), I thought that this might be a kind of progressive film — perhaps tracing the role the US covert services played in creating Al Qaeda.
Unfortunately, it isn't. This is a thoroughly reactionary film from beginning to end, barely giving a nod in the direction of the ongoing US occupation of Afghanistan.
The film follows US congressman Charlie Wilson, a Democrat, who says he's "one of Isreal's men" in Congress. He represents the second electoral district in Texas, a constituency he says is the only one in the US where voters "don't want anything" — except small government and lower taxes. This gives him the ability to bargain. "I get to vote 'yes' a lot", he says.
Hanks obviously got a kick out of playing the hard-drinking, cocaine-using, sexist politician, who has a glass of whiskey in one hand and a young woman in the other in practically every scene.
But the film goes on to make Wilson, along with hard-bitten CIA operative Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and evangelical Dallas socialite Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), into heroes in the battle to "kill some Russians" and "liberate" Afghanistan from the "Soviet empire".
We probably can't expect a historically balanced account of the US campaign to topple the left-wing Afghan government between 1978 and 1992, when it was finally defeated after the fall of the Soviet Union cut off military supplies. But, incredibly, the film also flatters the mujahideen (radical Islamists who ruled Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996 when they were defeated by the even more reactionary Taliban), ignoring the often brutal attacks that these forces made on the social gains made possible by the 1978 revolution.
This brought the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) to power, including the establishment of schooling for girls and land reform.
The film does depict the arrogant brutality of the Soviet forces, who intervened in Afghanistan in December, 1979 as it seemed likely that the PDPA government might fall and the USSR be faced with a reactionary Islamic regime on its doorstep. However it fails to acknowledge the brutality of the mujahideen forces, one of whose favourite tactics was to "torture their victims by cutting off their noses, ears and genitals, then removing one slice of skin after another, producing a slow, very painful death", according to William Blum, in his book Killing Hope.
Charlie Wilson's War is well acted. However, as a film, it's a little like a joke without the punchline.
I sat watching the film waiting for the obvious link to be drawn between the enormous funding that the US delivered to its reactionary clients (including of course, Osama bin Laden) and the bombing of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. None came.
The most we get is a small acknowledgement from Wilson that "the US comes and changes the world, but then we leave", as a Congressional committee refuses to spend $1 million to reconstruct a school in Afghanistan.
What may not be worth the price of an admission to the picture theatre may be worth a look now that it's on DVD. But beware, this is also a gratuitously sexist film, with some of the shots chosen by the director making you wonder whether you're watching a Hollywood film or a Benny Hill re-run.