Ill-Informed Gadfly

Mike Nichols is at his best when he keeps things fast and funny. He likes pretty, witty people in opulent surroundings. But when he has to get his hands dirty — staging physical or emotional violence, pondering the troubling implications of his material — he’s lost. “Charlie Wilson’s War” fits neatly, then, in Nichols’s entertaining but shallow ouevre. When it’s a nimble chronicle of a ne’er-do-well congressman with a burgeoning conscience, it’s fantastic. Tom Hanks does some of his sharpest, most charismatic work in years as the hard-drinking, skirt-chasing Rep. Charlie Wilson of Texas’s 2nd District. He shows how a lively intellect lurks among Wilson’s outsize appetites. The best scene in the movie is a door-slamming triangle in Wilson’s office. In and out of one door come Wilson’s frantic, fetching staffers — he was famous for hiring only young, beautiful women — as they craft a statement in response to allegations that Wilson used cocaine. (He did, but he’s pretty sure it can’t be proven.) Meanwhile, brusque CIA operative Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is ushered in and out another door; he and Wilson passionately debate how to enhance the CIA’s covert operations in Afghanistan. Wilson switches gears effortlessly; he thrives on the overheated atmosphere. Smart, endearingly flawed people solving complicated problems with breathless panache: It should come as no surprise to fans of “The West Wing” that Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay for “Charlie Wilson’s War.” Nichols proves a match for Sorkin’s torrents of dialogue, as does the cast. Amy Adams, as Wilson’s top aide, and Om Puri, as Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, light up the screen with brains and sly humor. Hoffman is at his brash, earthy, acid-tongued best. (Julia Roberts, as a right-wing Texas society lady who prods Wilson to support the Afghans, feels oddly disengaged. Her over-the-top makeup makes a stronger impression than her performance; she looks like a crazy-eyed Joan Crawford.)

Here’s the problem, though: I didn’t much like “The West Wing.” I appreciated Sorkin’s gift for rapid, stylized banter, but I thought it masked his superficiality. “Charlie Wilson’s War” is like a big-budget, Very Special two-part episode — right down to the 90-minute running time. It tackles a complicated issue, throws in some laughs and then wraps it up way too neatly. In the combat sequences, Nichols is lost. Soviet fighter planes strafe Afghan civilians with video-game blitheness, and Afghans shoot down helicopters with jokey nonchalance. None of it is credible. It’s possible the incoherent tone of this material arises from Nichols’s fear of sacrificing the movie’s comic momentum. But I tend to think he’s just overmatched. He wants the combat to be realistic and jolting — but he has no idea how to shoot it.

Abruptly, years pass. The Soviets retreat, and the war is over. Here comes what should be the heart of the movie, when our heroes confront the unintended consequences of funding Islamic-fundamentalist freedom fighters. But Nichols’s heart’s not in it. Charming Hanks becomes Cloying Hanks for a few short scenes in which Wilson ponders what he’s wrought. A great filmmaker could move into messier, thornier issues and emotions without losing his comic brio. But Nichols’ energetic depiction of Washington pettiness and hypocrisy fades away, replaced by plodding satire. The movie wants you to stop and think, so after it ham-fistedly asks you to think a little, it just stops.