Dana's review puts this film into a film history perspective which I would otherwise lack having seen far fewer films than she has and her evaluation of the dramatis personae and technique all make her work valuable to me as a movie viewer.

Regarding the actual historical basis of this film my inclination is to regard my own expertise as both a taxpayer and veteran to guide me. In that vein her summary that:

In Sorkin and Nichols' fantasy '80s, Republicans and Democrats can, literally, get in bed together for the greater good of the country, and covert wars fought by proxy can keep the bad guys out of our back yard, at least for a decade or two. Must've been nice.

is less than convincing.

I recall politicians of all persuasions getting tangled up in drug related incidents in the 1980's. The fact that illegal drug use has been so prevalent in America for so long including among the highest levels of government that it is now beyond serious scrutiny is far more interesting to me than are proxy wars which have been an obvious fact of power politics since time immemorial. Why fight when you can get someone else to do it for you?

Suggesting that the 'bad guys' were not already in our 'back yards' before 9/11 ignores the ubiquitous corruption which has been undermining our ability to defend America for all of my lifetime. I am old enough to remember seeing one president assassinated on TV and another one get shot about the time that this movie is concerned with. No matter who was behind it, it was bad and it was in our 'back yard'.

Charlie Wilson's War glamorizes what is most wrong about our country and it will probably make some already rich people even more rich still. Yet I will see it and pay $10 if only because after having sat captive for hours in a MEPS station watching Jerry Springer on the TV with the 'Do Not Touch' sign while waiting for my own chance to go away to war (Iraq not Afghanistan) it will be nice to vicariously see some very attractive and wealthy people living it up doing things which would put me in jail for a long time if I ever did them myself.

Man can not live by C-SPAN alone. Now that's comedy.