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by Aaron Friedman, Screening Liberally
One of the most fascinating political stories of the past twenty years - the saga of Democratic congressman "Charlie Wilson's War" against the Soviets in 1980s Afghanistan, based on George Crile's bestseller - has just come out as an innocuous, almost apolitical Tom Hanks-vehicle.
 If you want to see a few explosions, reasonably attractive naked women, and a great performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman as the CIA's Gust Avrakotos, you won't be disappointed. But the movie misses the opportunity to explore a true Machiavellian achievement.
For despite the story's exotic locations, from Afghan refugee camps to high society Texas, Charlie Wilson's real-life drama played out in the congressional budget appropriations process. Through cunning, stealth, cleverly applied pressure, and old-fashioned horse-trading, Wilson managed to push over 500 million dollars through Congress to arm and train the Afghan Mujahedin in their guerilla war against the invading Soviet army. Funneling money and matériel through the CIA, he effectively managed a proxy war with no oversight, on a scale Oliver North could only dream of. Neither Congress nor the American people consented to start this war - how could they, when neither even knew it was going on?
Yet everything seemed to end well. Displaying rare competence, the CIA used Wilson's funding to help defeat the Soviets, the USSR collapsed soon after, and Wilson became a hero inside the government's spy agencies… at least until some of the Afghan fighters he had helped arm, such as Osama Bin Ladin, trained their sights on the US.
But very little of this morally complicated story makes it into the movie of "Charlie Wilson's War." One reason is a fundamental miscasting; in the same way Steve Carell is no Ricky Gervais, Tom Hanks is no Charlie Wilson.
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