Sunday, December 30, 2007

Charlie Wilson's War (movie review)

You could easily use this as a sequel to Good Shepherd, though with a couple missing in between (like Star Wars, it comes at ya out of order).

Although unabashedly fictionalized, this Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts vehicle closely follows the literature, in showing a fragile coalition standing up to the Soviet Army just long enough to bring world attention to the practice of tyranny by helicopter gunship. Ideologues that wouldn't normally collaborate do so in this film.

The conclusion alludes to the subsequent blowback chapter, predicted by Ralph McGehee (Colby's tenure), other Reagan-Casey Era veterans.

The Tom Hanks character is an in your face fierce proponent of a Jahiliyyahesque lifestyle, patently offensive to many Christians, even more so than the Afghanis, who openly adore belly dancing.

Hoffman
steals the show as Gust, our wicked little green man from Langley.

OK, that's it for this marquee -- I'm not gonna go see the chipmunk movie (I wasn't crazy about the TV cartoon either).