I saw Charlie Wilson’s War the other day. It’s a true story, a portrait about Charlie Wilson, a politician in the U.S. House of Representatives from the Second District of Texas, who pretty much single handed helped get funds into Afghanistan to drive out the Soviets and thereby end the Cold War in the late 80s.

This is a movie that has somewhat slipped under the radar for me, despite having a cast with Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman, where the last is absolute brilliant – yet again (he got nominated for an Oscar).

“Good Time Charlie” was the nickname that Charlie Wilson picked up for his notorious personal life. He staffed his office with young, tall and attractive women who were dubbed “Charlie’s Angels” by other members of Congress. In 1986 Charlie was actually put on the spot by U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, who in his hunt for white collar crime, investigated Wilson for allegedly snorting cocaine at a hot-tub party with naked women in Las Vegas. In 1993, Wilson was given a special award by the CIA’s director, recognising him as ‘an honoured colleague’ of the clandestine intelligence community.

Charlie Wilson was also a quote machine, check out this beauty:
“You can teach them to type, but you can’t teach them to grow tits.” (On the question “does the Congressman only hire beautiful women? ” to one of his secretaries).

The most classic quote is of course in the last title card:
“These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world…
…and then we fucked up the end game.” – Charlie Wilson

Good movie. Indeed.