A movie about politics? Booooooo-ring! Can those ever be good? JFK was a three hour snooze-fest that turned an interesting event in history into a ‘last week of school’ movie which students did their best to ignore. Evita starred Madonna as she played an Argentinean first lady that literally no one gave two shits about. Despite my previous run-ins with uninteresting films focusing on political figureheads, I decided to give Charlie Wilson’s War a chance based on a minor infatuation I have with Julia Roberts (maybe not the best reason to watch a movie, but she kinda looks like a teacher I once had a crush on.)

Although I’ve had a bad track record with these types of movies, Charlie Wilson’s War was different – although, not bad different. The main focus of the film was on, and stayed on, the power of diplomacy. If someone were to tell me that I’d be watching something that focused on the diplomacy of war, I’d probably roll my eyes and think in annoyance:  ‘What the hell do I want to watch people talk about war for? I don’t want to hear about war, I want to see it.  Show me the guns and bombs, the thrill of victory and the tragedy of loss.’ I was wrong in this case.

The war itself was secondary to the events that led to its end. Watching Wilson and his colleagues, Joanne Herring, business woman and political activist (played by Julia Roberts), and Gust Avrakotos, division chief for the CIA (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman), go back and forth between Egypt, Israel, Pakistan and Afghanistan, kept the story rooted in Wilson’s diplomatic efforts. Also, I thought it was fitting to not play up the ‘Patriotic America’ and ‘Mission Accomplished’ angle up too much towards the end when Wilson’s goal was reached. After all, the U. S. reached their goal by allowing the Afghans to risk lives and do the dirty work on their behalf.

I liked the movie and it was good to learn a little more about a part of history that I only knew bits and pieces about. It wouldn’t be the type of film I would watch again and again, but definitely would have done a better job keeping me focused on the movie and not a squirrel running up a tree outside room 113 had it been played in history class back in my day.