Tamar, the baby and I made it down to North Carolina a little earlier than usual for Christmas this year. We usually fly in a day before Christmas Eve and then fly out the next day or the day of. So it has been great just relaxing and seeing family and after a busy day of visiting with cousins we thought it would be nice to see movie. It was between National Treasure 2 and Charlie Wilson's War. My brother has come to completely despise Nicholas Cage mostly for the same reason that I have begun to hate him, for his retarded Elvis impressions in all of his films. I wanted to see Charlie Wilson especially since one of my favorite writers wrote the script, Aaron Sorkin, from West Wing, Sports Night, A Few Good Men and An American President.
Sorkin was at his best--he always does the political and military themed films so damn well. It's the 80's and Charlie Wilson, played by Tom Hanks, is a smooth womanizing Congressman from the 6th District of Texas. As he sits in a hot tub with two strippers and a Playboy model he seems to fit the bill as a over-indulgent representative living high off the American dollar. All of a sudden he ignores the hot models and focuses on Dan Rather in a turban talking about the fortitude of the Afghan rebels and their desire to rid themselves of the Russians forever. This is where the plan is put into motion when Charlie Wilson decides to help the rebels with heavy weaponry to stop the slaughter. This is the general plot but there is so much more. This is a guy who surrounds himself with gorgeous female assistants whom he lovingly calls Jailbait. He has a smart and sexy assistant played handily by Amy Adams. Yet there is something off about this snake oil salesman. Could he actually be a caring and thoughtful person underneath?
I think in some ways the film attempts to show a man who opens his eyes for the first time as he decides to do something good but he discovers there are consequences to his noble actions. As always I enjoy Sorkin and his rat-a-tat-tat dialogue that just makes me smile throughout the entire film. It doesn't take itself too seriously and has a very bi-partisan message so you don't have any of that this is a liberal movie, garbage. Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and especially Phillip Seymour Hoffman are at the top of their game here, so what are you waiting for go and see this now before it gets buried behind National Treasure and Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Grade 4 Buckets
I think in some ways the film attempts to show a man who opens his eyes for the first time as he decides to do something good but he discovers there are consequences to his noble actions. As always I enjoy Sorkin and his rat-a-tat-tat dialogue that just makes me smile throughout the entire film. It doesn't take itself too seriously and has a very bi-partisan message so you don't have any of that this is a liberal movie, garbage. Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and especially Phillip Seymour Hoffman are at the top of their game here, so what are you waiting for go and see this now before it gets buried behind National Treasure and Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Grade 4 Buckets
1 comment:
Thanks for the review. I've been laid up and on a movie binge and was hesitant to see a bunch of liberals try to portray, realistically, the complex machinations behind the Cold War ripples in the Middle East.
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