8/10
A very good movie
17 October 2008
A fictionalized account of Congressman Charlie Wilson's push to have the US support the Afghani fighters against the Soviet invasion. It was a great balance between comedy and drama, reminding me how disappointing it is that we all don't have script writers in real life. Ignoring all the witty lines, it also does a great job at showing how Congress really works, for both good and bad, as influence is peddled and favors are traded behind the scenes.

As for the clueless review that mentions "even if it does flunk the obvious link between the help that Herring and Wilson provide and the ultimate consequences (9/11)," it didn't ignore it at all. The end point about us spending billions to free Afghanistan but being unwilling to spend a million to rebuild the schools was a clear hat tip to that. It wasn't the war that led to 9/11, it was the usual ability of Congress to ignore long term impacts. If it had spent a small fraction on rebuilding Afghanistan that it did to free it, the Taliban would have never come to power.
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