Another week, and some more insight by Flats
The State of America: Charlie Wilson’s War
Ahh, Christmas. Food, football and shameless family feuds. We see the New York Giants got their gift two days early, don’t put the ball in the hands of your quarterback and you will win. And so as knowledge of a leaders inability is the best game plan for the Giants, the same message resonates in the latest Philip Hoffman film, Charlie Wilson’s War. Don’t be fooled by the star-studded ensemble, there is only one great performance here, with Hoffman’s ever-lovable ‘Fuck Off’ his hearts motto.
It is an awareness raising film, in that we see the complete idiocy of the Republican Party, if this is to be considered an actual recreation of politics and war in the making. A fantastical wish with Hollywood’s journalistic integrity ever siding with the far left, but hope is blind, is it not? Don’t expect safety, sweet doughy blue eyed Democrats, your indecision and Congress stalling abilities are sure to get the missile launcher aimed right back at us. And the opening scene of the film is exactly that, the silhouette of a man in Afghan garb against the hell burnt sky, faking aim at something far off in the distance, and then a quick about-face to the viewer, the click of the trigger being pulled, and the missile engulfing the screen.
What is inspiring, I suppose, is how effective a politician is once a politician decides to be. Hell, Charlie Wilson was a boozing party boy Texan politician who decided to enter a war, swapped favors for money, pulled the cloth over the eyes of the American people, and put weapons and training in the hands of a displaced population who were furious at the Great Evil Superpower invading their country at the time. Then this Texas Politician had Afghans fight our battle against our enemy.
The only truly redeeming quality in Wilson’s character is the attempt at rebuilding Afghanistan after the Soviets had destroyed it, and the unnamed footers of the bill (Democrats?) denied him a mere million dollars to fund schooling that might provide hope to these destroyed, displaced, heavily bombed people. There is also a nod to the founding of Extreme Fundamentalism at our great Born Again Republican politicians, and with the complete abandonment of our government in this demolished corner of the world, the moral of the story might be that we got what we deserved, or at least what our government leaders deserved, because no one on those planes or in the Towers certainly did.
The most provoking insult is the element of fun in the film. ‘War’ is in the title of the film, am I not mistaken? Is this not the same word most closely associated with ‘Hell’? The same word contributing to our brave soldiers’ worries, post-traumatic stress disorders, missing limbs, lost lives and suicides, and motherless/fatherless children? I hope you come away from the film furious at the politics of our great country, because anything less would mean Americans should sign ol’ George W. up for another term. And that’s exactly what our Hollywood friends intended with this one…
