This movie is about this Texas Congressman, Charlie Wilson, who took on the side of the Afghanistan people after seeing the refugee camp near Pakistan. He worked with the help of wealth doner (Julia Roberts) to get $1B to fund the rebels against the Russians, who invaded the country in the ’80’s. The simple goal of shooting down Russians’ helicopters with bazookas turned into a key strategy that drove the Russian back. Of course, at the end US lost the war because we failed to fund their schools to educate the people and plants the seeds of democracy, though the costs were way smaller than the costs of the war of fighting the Al Queda that eventually took over the country.

Both Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts performed well. I didn’t recognize Phillips Seymour Hoffman until I saw the credit. All are very credible in the movie. Later I googled Charlie Wilson and found that he passed away in 2010 last year at 76. Tom Hanks does resemble him somewhat. Good to see a playboy congressman has so much passion helping people many thousands of miles away. Rare.