Charlie Wilson's War: Critic Reviews

Charlie Wilson's War is a journalistic satire of realpolitik in which our jerry-rigged alliances, which looked strategic at the time, end up biting the U.S. in unforeseen ways.

It's quite a yarn, and the filmmakers relate it with clarity and verve.

It all adds up to something very unsatisfying, and less than honest.

While not deeply insightful, Charlie Wilson's War is an eye-opening and sassy tale of political will making for unlikely bedfellows.

Gosh, does this movie have it all or what? Smart dialogue, Julia Roberts in a bikini and looking grrrrrr-eattttt, and Russian helicopters going boom! It's also short! What's not to love?

Contrary to what Sorkin and Nichols seem to think, the problem is not that topicality and entertainment don't mix. It's that audacity and self-congratulation don't.

The big-screen Charlie Wilson's War, clocking in at 93 fly-by minutes, is dark and funny and mean and sexy, damned near pitch-black-perfect considering that at the end of this boozy comedy you wind up with, oh, Osama bin Laden.

If Charlie doesn't feel quite real, Hanks at least makes him good company.

I didn't believe a bit of it, thanks to the movie's style, except for some newsreel and documentary footage, and even that felt epoxied on.

It is briskly paced, nimbly acted and crisply directed by Mike Nichols.

Mr. Hanks comes through with an egoless performance -- no movie star is so adept at not acting like a movie star -- and Mr. Hoffman continues his year of doing no wrong

Highly entertaining -- and mildly uncomfortable.

Tells a momentous story -- a story every American should know -- in a boisterous, lickety-split style that makes the history lesson go down easily.

The film, adapted from George Crile's book, doesn't always work, but it sure offers value for money.

Nichols fills the edges of the screen with unforced humor.

Something doesn't smell right with Charlie Wilson's War. I'm not particularly concerned with the specific facts it has left out of its telling. But what has been left in feels compromised and dodgy.

As creator and head writer of The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin had a gift for making policy debate seem sexy, but what worked in the context of that liberal fantasy founders badly amid the realpolitik of this cold war drama.

Charlie Wilson's War tells its tale briskly, almost merrily. This is not a sober history lesson, but a political comedy laced with sex (party girls in limos, strippers in hot tubs), booze, and even good old-fashioned cocaine.

The film moves along smartly despite being stuffed to bursting with details of arms deals, diplomatic ploys and political maneuvering.

A well-intentioned wreck.

When Charlie Wilson's War is on target -- pretty much every time Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman appear on-screen together -- it's a really enjoyable movie.

Charlie Wilson's War is that rare Hollywood commodity these days: a smart, sophisticated entertainment for grownups.

A feel-good comedy about a covert US effort to fund resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? What will Hollywood think of next?

The history that's here is worth knowing, and Hanks, Roberts, Hoffman and Nichols make those Beat-the-Russkies '80s seem like a party.

Tom Hanks delivers another of his patented good-guy roles.