I know this review is of a movie that came out in theaters a year ago or more, but I hate people (especially YOU) and I've refused to go to the theaters since the last Lord of the Rings came out.

Anyway, Charlie Wilson's War is about the Afghanistan conflict against the Soviets in the 80s, and actually is not a war that America officially took part in. I know it sounds boring, but it's really not. The movie is entertaining, the characters are amazingly well written and acted, and the storyline is just complex enough to be interesting without drowning you in congressional oversight subcommittee rules.

The titular Charlie, played by Tom Hanks, is a drunken lech who really is only in Congress because it's easier than doing anything else. He represents a small, useless district of Texas and spends his days voting however his aide tells him to vote, staring at and/or having sex with his 6 busty assistants, getting drunk and doing cocaine.

However, while doing cocaine in a hot tub with a couple of naked stripped in Vegas (warning: movie contains actual naked strippers), Charlie sees a news broadcast about Afghanistan. You see, people-who-didn't-listen-in-school, in the 1980s the Soviet Union was attempting to take over the world, silently. To do this, they needed a way to get their ships into the Mediterranean, and from there to the Atlantic. So they decided the best way to do this was to invade the Middle East, because if there's one thing history tells us, it's that the Middle East is a cake walk. So Russia begins invading Afghanistan.

The Afghanis fight back bravely, but there's no scenario in the world where "AK47" beats "armored gunships." So they ask Charlie for help. However, because the United States is involved in the Cold War with the USSR, we can't very well send over the Marines, or even American-made rifles, for fear of the USSR finding out, and a cold war turning into a hot one. That's all I'm going to say about the plot. If you know history already, you know how it turns out (hint: do you speak Russian and/or are you currently suffering from radiation sickness?).

Now, the characters. Tom Hanks is always amazing, the guy really becomes all these different people, but each person he becomes still has some of Hanks' personality quirks. It's an amazing process to watch. It helps that we ended up watching 3 Tom Hanks movies in a row, but that was purely random. As Charlie Wilson you really get the impression, at first, that he doesn't care about anything but booze and women. Then he really picks up the Afghani conflict and makes it his own. A real metamorphosis is hard to find in a movie.

The supporting characters are brilliant as well. The ever-amazing Julia Roberts plays a spoiled, overly-religious Texas bitch so well that I don't think I'd go over and talk to her if I saw her at a party. Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of my favorite actors, and I think he's grossly under-used by Hollywood. He makes a brilliant showing as Gust, the CIA agent that helps Charlie. The first scene where Charlie and Gust finally meet is one of the best movie scenes I've seen in a long time. Gust's scene with his boss near the beginning of the movie is fantastic as well.

Now, all that being said, it's a movie for a very specific audience: Well-educated, well versed in history and the inner workings of government. Plus, it takes a very satirical bent sometimes. For instance:
Joanne: "Why is Congress saying one thing and doing nothing?"
Charlie: "Well, tradition, mostly."

If you don't think that's funny, you may not want to watch the movie. If you DO think it's funny, go pick it up right now. At the risk of sounding like a shill, Blockbuster rents movies for $1 or $2 a night, it's some of the best bang for your buck that you'll find outside of reading.