Charlie Wilson's War

This film presents the more or less true story of the US congressman who, almost single-handedly, increased the covert ops budget for supporting the Afghans fight against the Soviets from $5 million to $500 million, in so doing winning the war and helping to lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The talent on display is impressive - its directed by Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Catch 22, Working Girl, etc...), scripted by Aaron Sorkin (the early seasons of The West Wing) and stars Tom Hanks as Wilson, Julia Roberts as the wealthy Texas lady who inspires him and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the less than diplomatic CIA agent.

And the results? Well, they're almost as good as you might hope - the casting is pitch perfect. Hanks is a delight to watch playing against type as the boozy, womanising congressman and Hoffman is hilarious. Roberts is slightly less used, but makes her scenes really sparkle. The supporting cast (a rather dodgy Israeli accent from Ken Stott aside) is equally strong, including good turns from Enchanted's Amy Adams and veteran Ned Beatty, although Emily Blunt (The Devil wears Prada) is rather wasted in a brief cameo as one of Wilson's women.

As you might expect from Sorkin, the script fairly zings - especially when one or more of three leads are on screen. With The West Wing he showed that he could skillfully write scripts which shifted from humour to genuine emotion and back again. Nichols CV also displays an ability to shift between comedy and drama with ease and the same skill is on display here - moving from witty exchanges to genuine pathos as Wilson visits the refugee camp. The shot where the camera pans back from a distraught Wilson on the edge of the camp to show the vastness of the refugee problem hits hard.

Which makes it all the more incredible that on occasion these changes in tone jar rather hard. The celebratory tone of the montage showing helicopters and planes destroyed is, in particular, rather hard to stomach. I rather suspect this in intentional - because, whilst on one level, this story works as a good ol' American boy refusing to bow to bureaucracy and solving the world's ills by throwing guns at them, both the film and Wilson himself are smarter than that. They know that that's only half the story, and is in itself, symptomatic of an attitude in American foreign policy which creates these situations. So intentional, but not entirely successful.

Which brings us onto the ending - which critics seem to have seen as either one of the film's greatest strength or biggest weakness. I would place myself firmly in the former and would ask those who see it as too overtly liberal how else the movie could have ended. Knowing what we know now - a film about the Afghan war cannot end triumphantly with the defeat of the Soviets - that just won't wash and Wilson himself knows this. (I would also further suggest that the reviewer who described the ending as schmaltzy has completely mis-read the tone of the whole film - I mean, what was she watching?). Instead we are left with the haunted image of Hanks' face - displaying too clearly that he knows the job has been left half done in not helping to re-construct the country. Its one of the film's enduring images and its ultimate point as the final quote in the closing credits from Wilson shows:

"These things happened, they were great and changed the world ... and then we ------ up the end-game".

Overall - 4/5.
A slightly flawed but well done, intelligent and highly entertaining look at some of the origins of some of the problems we face today.




Afghanistan - a movie guide.
Watch this together with The Kite Runner and then rent the excellent 9th Company on DVD for a Russian perspective. Also, you might want to check out some of the growing number of critically acclaimed films from Afghanistan itself, but I can't think of any titles off the top of my head.

The Greatest Jihad

“The Greatest Jihad is the battle against evil in ourselves”.

I came across the above quote (or something very similar – can’t remember the exact words), which I’m guessing is a translation of something from the Koran whilst watching the American drams series Sleeper Cell on DVD. Whilst it might lack the big names, big budgets, frenetic pace and excitement of 24, it interested me for a number of reasons. The main was its portrayal of the battle against Islamic extremism and terrorism as, fundamentally, a battle within Islam. The undercover FBI agent who is the hero of the series is a devout Muslim who sees his actions every bit as much serving Allah and his faith as the extremist terrorists see theirs. Yes, the series is sometimes rather heavy-handed in delivering its message – a scene where the hero is invited to speak at a primary school springs to mind (“My daddy says Muslims don’t eat bacon and hate us”) – but this central idea sets it apart from other shows which tackle the same subject and might be crucial to our thinking on the subject.

Islamic fundamentalism won’t be defeated by Jack Bauer in 24 hours and it won’t be stopped by Western military involvement in the Middle East. Quite the contrary, our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, whether you think them justified or not, have only played into the hands of those seeking to recruit for extremist causes. Personally I think the war in Iraq was wrong, although I don’t think it was part of a religious crusade or even that it was primarily about oil. Although, I do think that there are those in the American administration who have sought to turn the situation to their own advantage and that on both sides of the Atlantic, information was misrepresented in order to create a justification for a war that had already been decided upon. I do believe that both Bush and Blair genuinely saw Saddam as a threat that needed to be tackled, but history will be judge their wisdom in this, and I suspect judge them quite harshly. But I digress, the point is that, whether justified or not, the recent actions of the West seem to only be strengthening the very extremist forces they seek to oppose. I’m coming to believe that the only solution to Islamic extremism will be an Islamic one.

Attitudes in the UK towards Muslims at the moment seem to polarise towards the two extremes of those who attack mosques, blame all Muslims for terrorist attacks and wish to drive them from the country and those who carry political correctness to a ridiculous extreme and to avoid offending Muslims would rename Christmas as Winterval and change the Three Little Pigs to the Three Little Puppies. Of course these are the extremes and many people are somewhere in the middle, but both extremes have this in common – they are not listening to Muslims themselves about what they think and what they want.

I wish I could say that as Christians we displayed a better attitude and there are some Christians and churches who are a wonderful example of reaching out to Muslims in love. However, there are also those who seem to display an ignorance and a resentment towards Islam. Several times over the past six months or so I have heard stories of Christians responding to situations with comments along the lines of “You wouldn’t say that to me if I was a Muslim” and then being offended when this landed them in trouble. Somehow this was being held up as an example to follow. Leaving aside the part of this that appears to come from a perverse desire in certain aspects of the Christian church in this country to see themselves as a persecuted minority (get over it, brothers, and be thankful for the freedoms we have in this country), these comments seem to display an attitude which lacks respect and love for those they speak to, displays resentment and disrespect for the Muslim community. Most of all it is not the kind of thing that I could ever imagine Jesus saying. Yes, there are times when the Muslim community seems rather better at getting their voice heard about issues they find offensive, but I say that’s a good thing – a sign of a society which is prepared to listen to the voices of minorities. Maybe if we lost the chip from our shoulders, we’d be rather better at getting our own voice heard. Instead, maybe more of us should follow the example of those believers who are reaching out to Muslim community in love, engaging them in dialogue and trying to understand. This dialogue need not be based on a relativistic nonsensical idea that we’re all worshipping the same God (most Muslims certainly wouldn’t go for that) but on the basis that we disagree on some fundamentals, we can still respect each others beliefs, find several issues on which we share common ground and can stand together. And I speak to myself here as well, there are areas of Islam I feel very ignorant of, but I would like to understand more, not so I can argue against it (in my experience, such arguments are almost entirely fruitless) but so I can understand where people are coming from better.

Returning briefly to Sleeper Cell, one of the other things that struck me was the international make-up of the terrorist cell. Notably including a Bosnian Muslim who was radicalised by his experiences in the Bosnian war when, whilst the West stood by, extremist Islamic groups fought for them. It is now widely acknowledged that the West did too little too late in Bosnia, it is a scary thought that history might judge that as one of the biggest missed opportunities to form a positive bridge to the Muslim world.