A fascinating episode of history, particularly in light of recent events, makes for an entertaining movie which is frustratingly never as good as if could have been. Tom Hanks is a fine actor and you can’t really fault his performance – but he’s just plain miscast. The role of Charlie Wilson is a gift, a womanizing hawkish good old boy who was nonetheless pro choice and ERA – a natural for, say, Tommy Lee Jones or John Travolta or someone like that. Tom Hanks simply struggles to convey amiable hedonism, and it makes the film frustrating. The other debit is Mike Nichol’s direction – it’s clean and precise, etc, but it felt as though it needed more energy: the camera to move around, or more music, or snappier editing or something.
Aaron Sorkin isn’t always the easiest writer to direct and his excellent script really isn’t given the treatment it deserves. Fine work from Julia Roberts and (especially) Philip Seymour Hoffman; Amy Adams is fun, too, as Hanks’ assistant (Sorkin loves writing scenes between men and their female secretaries) and Emily Blunt very sexy in a small role.
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