LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

grantss Early 1980s. Charlie Wilson is a relatively unimportant and unproductive Texas congressman. He does have one advantage - he is on two important committees, covering foreign and military policy. He learns of the situation in Afghanistan and how the Russians are treating the Afghanis and is determined to help, through providing the Mujahideen with weapons. This sets in motion an unlikely sequence of deals and alliances. Excellent movie. Covers an important series of events in world history, the short-term consequences of which were positive, the long term less so. Does so in very light, funny fashion. This highlights the farcicalness of some of the events, and helps the story move along. It would have been a very dry movie if it was entirely serious.Despite the non-seriousness of much of the movie, has a very powerful and profound final message.Great acting by Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and, especially, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

hatlad Hanks does wonderful with Wilson's TX accent and playboy personality, sarcastic wit and character development. Philip Seymour Hoffman's character is just totally hilarious. I loved when Hanks/Wilson asking him "Do you drink?" and he said, "Oh God, yeah!"SPOILER ALERTAs for accuracy, I don't understand the criticism of another reviewer that the film doesn't address "that the funding of the Afghan rebels led directly to the formation of Al-Qaeda and all that followed." Uhhhh, not exactly. 1. It was the sudden withdrawal of US support once Russia exited Afghanistan that left the power vacuum that was filled by al-Qaeda. 2. The film did allude to that in 2 ways; development in the plot that the funding suddenly reduced once the Commies were gone and the end on screen text that said "We f-d up the endplay."

Johan Dondokambey The story opens up with its ending and then build its main character in an eccentric way. The tale is great that it reveals all the reluctance and tolerance found amidst the allying parties in driving the USSR away from Afghanistan. some may see this as an espionage movie, but for me, the main focus here is the lobbyist activities, especially lobbying for budget increase. Tom Hanks as always can present the right set of gestures to convey the character's complexity. Julia Roberts went nicely with the accent and the makeup. AMy Adams sure stand out in giving an alluring performance here. Philip Seymour Hofman was almost unrecognizable if it wasn't for his distinctive voice.

slash213 This movie presents extremely one-sided view on the Afghan war. I don't know if this is normal for the North American take on the situation, but for me it looks incredibly ignorant. Russians are rapists, ruthless invaders who's taking their joy in killing children and destroying peaceful villages. I struggled to find irony there but failed.I hope no one takes this movie as an accurate depiction of this conflict. I hope you'll make your research, you'll look at the pictures of dead youngsters who were thrown into this political mess without proper training or equipment (hello, mandatory draft). A lot of Russian families lost their sons and fathers to this war and they even had no reason to justify the loss.The movie itself is okay. Acting is mostly good (Philip Seymour Hoffman kills it like he always does), story is engaging, dialogues are witty and robust. The finale made the overall ignorance somehow less offensive. The ball keeps bouncing, doesn't it?But the way the movie portraits the motives of Russians is disgusting. I'm pretty sure some people who watched this thought it was accurate and I find this disastrous.