Charlie Wilson's review

I realize I’m the third person to post my review of the season’s best intellectual thriller. For the record, I haven’t read the other two reviews posted here, so there may be some duplicate thoughts. Before I get to the movie, permit me to describe the setting.

Old Town Warren
The Old Town Warren Theater in Wichita, Kansas, is the best-kept secret in the middle of the hard-to-understand one-way streets and elitist bars that plague Old Town. The only theater with a bar about which I know, and my first experience was glorious. A fairly bad snowstorm came through town earlier in the day, leaving the parking lot empty and the inside of the building not much more populated. We had a few beers and food while watching a football game on the theater sized screen which was filled with content from three, separate projectors showing three different feeds. Inside the theater we found wide rows with no fewer than three feet of leg room, as well as buttons on each seat that were monitored by wait staff, only too happy to bring us another big beer during the movie. And what a spectacularly good movie.

Charlie Wilson’s War
I’ve known since the cancellation of Studio 60 that Aaron Sorkin’s next effort was the screenplay for some movie about the first war in Afghanistan. Finding out earlier this month about the release date made me eager to see it and recommend it to others. I hope those to whom I recommended the movie enjoy it half as much as I.

Here’s the quick review.

• The movie opened with nudity and drugs. Check.
• The movie had a church vs. state argument, won by the correct side. Check.
• The movie featured historical politics with a Sorkin flare. Check.
• “You can teach them to type, but you can’t teach them to grow tits.” Check.
• “For the love of Christ” said to convince an Israeli to provide munitions to the war effort. Check.

The movie did have some problems. Tom Hanks once again proved that he can’t act, though he so mis-acted this movie I didn’t know if it was Tom Hanks or Cuba Gooding, Jr. Also, the movie lacks the sensationalism, car chases and conspiracies that apparently create a box office hit. The other four companions who accompanied me to the theater were significantly less excited than I after seeing the picture, obviously due to the lack of the aforementioned glitz in favor of substance.

I, for one, can’t wait to see the movie a third time to enjoy, like a fine-Sorkin-smoky-Islay-single-malt-scotch, the beautiful and intelligent humor, dry wit and elegant political discourse that makes Charlie Wilson’s War one of the most enjoyable, if not best, movies I’ve seen in years.