Eye Candy #142 - "Charlie Wilson's War"

Charlie Wilson’s War: A colorful retelling of possibly the first and only time Americans, Israelis, and Muslims actually worked together to make the world a better place. Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is a congressman from Texas who, after seeing news about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (and with prodding from a Texas socialite played by Julia Roberts), sends arms and money to the mujahadeen to the tune of some $500 million dollars to fight back. Helping him along the way is a disgruntled CIA agent Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman). And the catch - it can't look like the Americans are arming the Afghanis, so you have to arm them with Soviet-made arms (which they got from Israel) to look like they were "recovered" by the muj, smuggle them into the right muj hands (and they went through Pakistan), and still make it useful enough for the Afghanis to accomplish something. Charlie Wilson may have actually perpetrated the most cost-effective black ops operation in the history of the country. An interesting movie, but it's almost too short (right around 90 minutes) to really give you time to care, nor does it show how the poor follow-through resulted in the pre-9/11 Afghanistan of the Taliban. Hoffman steals the movie with his portrayal of the extremely dry Avrakotos. Woodchuck sez, "Worth a look, but won't stick with you."