Charlie Wilson’s War
Sunday, January 27th, 2008I saw this movie yesterday with my daughter and one of her friends. Now, I kind of like movies with a message that isn’t too hard to figure out. This is that kind of movie.
To me, this movie shows a straight line from Afghanistan in the ’80s through 9/11 to Iraq. It illustrates how our relationship with the rest of the world can be both positive and negative.
I want us out of Iraq as bad as the next guy. It’s clearly been a disaster in almost every way, but I think one can use the themes in this film to contend that we now bear some responsibility for fixing the mess we made. I wish somebody really knew how to fix it, without the ridiculous political pandering and posturing.
And though they probably didn’t enjoy it much, I certainly enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the origins and context of our current mess with a couple of 13 yr olds.
As an aside, seeing the girls, the box office guy gave us the stern (and hilarious) warning about sex, drugs and language when we bought the tickets. If you’re concerned about that with your kids don’t go, but basically the sex and drugs were done after the first 10 minutes of the film.


