Charlie Wilson's War

At first I didn't believe the post on the slightly irreverent local blog that I read first thing this morning. Benazir Bhutto dead? Surely this is some ironic commentary on the part of the editorial staff. A quick link to the BBC left me with a angry, scared pit in my stomach. I have no particular connection to Bhutto, nor really any detailed knowledge of her. Yet what I experienced--albeit briefly--felt like real grief. Surely, I was not really grieving for a woman I knew nothing about?

To sum up, the world is going to shit, and The United States in particular. In fact, everything that America touches turns to shit. There is a very real possibility in my mind that, unless several brave, honest people get elected very soon, that my country will turn into a police state, or at least our Americanized version of it. I'm not by any means patriotic, but I refuse to live in a country that looks like every historical cautionary tale written. I would act.

Which makes it provident that I saw this movie today. "Zia did not kill Bhutto" is an actual line in the movie, referring to Benazir's father, killed in a military coup. What plays out on the screen is not only a well filmed and engaging piece of cinema, but also a morality play that dodges the deadly dagger of didacticism. I never saw "Lions for Lambs", but I heard it was a preachy little turd. "Charlie Wilson's War", I wager, does what "Lions for Lambs" meant to, namely make the audience think about what exactly is going on in this country.

It makes only one misstep, summed up nicely in the last line of the movie: [something along the lines of] "What happened was glorious . . . and we fucked up the ending." While meant to refer to the war in Afghanistan--the one in the eighties, mind you; don't get confused--it could also be used to refer to the film itself. The last few scenes were unecessary. We didn't need to see all the steps of the fucking up. A hint or two would have been sufficient. The choice to frame the movie with Wilson receiving an award from the "Clandestine Services", tries to refocus the film on the character of Wilson and remind the audience that, although he was an asshole, he did a good thing. This blunted the far more moving message of the movie: "Get off your ass now. Don't wait for this country to become a police state--either fascist or communist, because the lessons of history have about a year to be learned before we repeat all of the worst ones.