Great acting, great director, fabulous story. If only we had put money into schools in Afghanistan. What could have happened??

Director Mike Nichols tries to square the circle here by portraying the largest clandestine war in U.S. history, the one that led to the creation of Al Qaeda and hence 9/11, as the guileless and well-meaning project of a lovable rake, the Democratic congressman from Texas, Charlie Wilson. At the end of the picture the viewer is supposed to be left muttering, "If only those louts in Congress would have listened to Charlie Wilson. . . ." It is a tougher sell in 2018 than when the movie premiered in 2007 given that in the last five years the U.S. has done the whole gigantic covert jihadi war thing all over again, this time in Syria, with Operation Timber Sycamore. Brought to us thanks not to a Republican administration but Barack Obama.

Interesting film, but not on I would watch a second time.

Turning points of history usually make lively viewing. In hindsight, or even in foresight, the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, and the West's support of the grotesque religious fanatics who lead the fight were horrible mistakes, responsible for the majority of turmoil in the world in 2016. The script is naive and somewhat one-sided, but the performances are good, with the exception of Ms. Roberts, whose brief appearance is easy to ignore.

Overlooking all the swearing and nudity this fact-based comedy-cum-drama still comes across as a fanciful Disney revisionist piece replete with sparkling personalities and a clearly defined line between the good guys and the bad guys. The American halls of power, here seen as a jocular cocktail party, provide little more than a colourful backdrop to Wilson’s visionary campaign with Hanks downing whiskey shots between bouts of moral indignation and Roberts rattling off political strategies while primping her eyelashes. Hoffman’s character however cuts straight to the heart of the film as a cynical, acid-tongued agent who has seen the results of too many “good intentions” to take much delight in Wilson’s victories. It is Hoffman’s performance, along with the venerable Om Puri as Pakistani president Zia, which give the film a welcome dose of gravitas while history itself provides the scathing irony.

It's worth watching.
Entertaining and instructive.
Those 3 main characters performed incredibly in this film.

Interesting. I learned about a period of history that I knew absolutely nothing about. The politics was a bit confusing for me at times but for the most part it was easy to follow. I wish I had known you see Tom Hanks' ass- I wasn't prepared for that lol!

This is a really good movie. Very interesting and a great job by Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Worth the watch if you like history and politics.

This is an atrocious, revisionistic piece of claptrap and nonsense. According to a French radio interview in the late 1990s with Zbig Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, President Carter signed a presidential directive to destabilize the then-secular government of Afghanistan, as they felt it was too friendly with its northern boarder neighbor, the Soviet Union. The Carter administration, together with the Saudis, would relocate Wahabist fundamentalist extremists, from Saudia Arabia and Yemen, to Afghanistan's northern border with the USSR, which then was occupied by the moderate Islamic Sufi practitioners (who made up much of the later Northern Alliance). (This occurred six months prior to the hostages taken in Iran, and the Iranians were well aware of what was transpiring next door to them.) To quell the religious turmoil the Wahabists were raising, and at the behest of the Afghanistani president, the Soviets invaded. First the Carter administration, then the Reagan administration funneled money and arms to what would become the Mujahadeen who, before they ever engaged the Soviet soldiers, first murdered all the remaining secularists (artists, professionals academics, et cetera). This was recounted in a book titled, "Bleeding Afghanistan" by an Afghanistani lady author. Entertainment, by the lamer Hanks, and real history are two entirely different critters! Of course, the Mujahadeen later morphed into the Taliban, and we don't hear too much about this anymore from Zbig!

We all know that Hollywood’s interpretations of historic events rarely correspond with reality. Nonetheless, “Charlie Wilson’s War” is still an entertaining and even informative film.