Genre: Drama/War/Biography
Starring: Tom Hanks, Philip Symour Hoffman, Julia Roberts, Amy Adams
First, a short history lecture. The Afghanistan government was threatened by Islamic mujahideen's, who were revolting against the government. Feeling insecure, in 1979, the government asked USSR to invade Afghanistan and take over the countries defense. The United States was at cold war with USSR and at that time and the government had a lot of anti-communism sentiments. Charlie Wilson (Hanks) a Congressman from Texas long with CIA agent Gustav (Hoffman) fought with their government for the Afghani cause. They wanted the government to increase Afghan funding and give the mujahideen's capable weapons of fighting the mighty Soviet Union. The weapons could not be directly sourced from USA because if the Afghans were caught with American made weapons, it would mean serious trouble. Hence, they decided to purchase Soviet weapons stocked at Israel and smuggle them in via Pakistan. This eventually led to USSR withdrawing its troops in 1988. The entire move to support Afghanistan against the Soviets was cited as a very bold and strong move. However, the US government failed to re-build Afghanistan soon after the war, which led to a lot of Anti-American sentiments within the people of Afghanistan. According to them, USA supported them only to fulfill their own intentions and didn't actually care two hoots about their country. This is said to have eventually led to 9/11. The movie does require the viewer to have some amount of prior knowledge about the USSR-Afghan war if he were to understand anything. The movie doesn't reveal the implications of not helping Afghanistan re-build itself after the war. The movie is a good watch to improve ones knowledge of the war but can be slightly confusing and uninteresting for others.
Thumbs up: Tom Hanks as always.
Thumbs down: The movie could have described post-war implications for USA
Rating: 7.1/10
Starring: Tom Hanks, Philip Symour Hoffman, Julia Roberts, Amy Adams
First, a short history lecture. The Afghanistan government was threatened by Islamic mujahideen's, who were revolting against the government. Feeling insecure, in 1979, the government asked USSR to invade Afghanistan and take over the countries defense. The United States was at cold war with USSR and at that time and the government had a lot of anti-communism sentiments. Charlie Wilson (Hanks) a Congressman from Texas long with CIA agent Gustav (Hoffman) fought with their government for the Afghani cause. They wanted the government to increase Afghan funding and give the mujahideen's capable weapons of fighting the mighty Soviet Union. The weapons could not be directly sourced from USA because if the Afghans were caught with American made weapons, it would mean serious trouble. Hence, they decided to purchase Soviet weapons stocked at Israel and smuggle them in via Pakistan. This eventually led to USSR withdrawing its troops in 1988. The entire move to support Afghanistan against the Soviets was cited as a very bold and strong move. However, the US government failed to re-build Afghanistan soon after the war, which led to a lot of Anti-American sentiments within the people of Afghanistan. According to them, USA supported them only to fulfill their own intentions and didn't actually care two hoots about their country. This is said to have eventually led to 9/11. The movie does require the viewer to have some amount of prior knowledge about the USSR-Afghan war if he were to understand anything. The movie doesn't reveal the implications of not helping Afghanistan re-build itself after the war. The movie is a good watch to improve ones knowledge of the war but can be slightly confusing and uninteresting for others.
Thumbs up: Tom Hanks as always.
Thumbs down: The movie could have described post-war implications for USA
Rating: 7.1/10
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