“My biggest issue with this film is probably that I didn’t think it succeeded properly in showing us that the US isn’t God’s Greatest Nation and that it’s made some Big Mistakes.”

Didn’t it? Didn’t the innumerable displays of the interesting little peccadilloes, to quote Pratchett, that went on behind the Washington political scene kinda suggest that American democracy isn’t everything the propaganda says it is? And didn’t the whole of the political establishment — which supposedly represents the people — make some pretty damn big mistakes? Take, for example, the Islamabad embassy CIA guy, or the Congressmen who almost laughed at the proposition that they should finance a couple of schools in Afghanistan?

I thought it did this quite splendidly. Like I said, I might have wanted a sentence about the geopolitical importance of Afganistan as a gateway to Iran, Pakistan and the Indian Ocean, or perhaps a reference to the moronic Domino theory that influenced American foreign policy so heavily during the Cold War, but seeing as these weren’t necessarily part of the motivations of the main characters (at least not of Charlie Wilson; that rightwing lunatic society woman might be a different story entirely, from what I’ve seen of her elsewhere), I’m suspecting that A. this want of mine might be a result of me being a history and political science geek, and B. that the inclusion of these elements wouldn’t necessarily result in a better movie.

“Sure, it wraps up the whole thing with a quote about how the US *should* have done a better job in helping the Afghans after the war, but I got left with a feeling that the movie had just spent two hours implying that the US is so goddamned powerful that a senator and a five guys from the CIA is enough to bring down the biggest nation on the face of the Earth, and that’s when they’re not even trying properly.”

Well, were and did they not? Granted, Saudi-Arabia contributed with about as much financial aid to the Mujahedin, who, obviously, did their share of the work, too, but it was undeniably Charlie Wilson who was the catalyst, the guy upset and brave enough to make that first step.

“It’s actually a heroic tale about how one man’s efforts can change the world, but it didn’t quite feel like that to me.”

But your description of the movie made it seem like that was exactly how it made you feel, and and that this is what you thought it was wrong with it?

Also, it felt so to me, so we disagree there, at least, if all this other stuff turns out to be just superficial fluff.

This isn’t an endorsement of the US’s actions during this conflict, but it could’ve conveyed that more openly than it did. As it is, I do believe that those who’d benefit the most from watching this wouldn’t walk away with the message that they were supposed to. And I find that sad, ’cause if it had just been a bit clearER, it’d all be all right.

Mind you, this isn’t a major complaint of mine.; it’s just something I noticed and lamented enough to make a mention of.

Whether the movie is “pro-American”, as I believe some would see it, or slightly critical of their lack of post-war support, which was how I mostly interpreted it, isn’t as important to me as how I felt it landed somewhere in between these stances.

Therefore, I guess you could say that it’s more of a storytelling issue than anything else.

So your problem with this movie is a political and/or ideological one, and not a storytelling one as such?