Charlie Wilson’s War
I need to start this off by saying, “I heart Aaron Sorkin’s TV shows” and I’ve seen every episode of all of them. Because I’ve only seen two of his movies, I can only say, “I heart one of Aaron Sorkin’s movies”. And that one movie I heart, does not share its title with this post.
Maybe I was expecting too much. Maybe I wanted the fast-paced, witty exchanges between characters. Or maybe it was too fast that I missed everything important. Maybe I wanted more character development. Or maybe I had enough character development and didn’t care for the characters. Luckily, the characters were based upon real people. So it’s not like he came up with their personalities on his own and made them boring. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that maybe any interesting thing about these characters I viewed, Sorkin developed and the events didn’t really happen. Maybe I wanted less lingering shots of women’s butts. Maybe I’m just jealous.
Maybe I expected the war scenes’ visual effects to at least not look like helicopters were shooting lasers instead of bullets – maybe I should have expected it to look like Star Wars instead. Maybe I should be less critical and not expect great effects from a movie that isn’t focused on the action. Maybe the story should have been more interesting and I wouldn’t care about the useless visual effects being sub-par. Maybe I *am* glad that there were a few funny Sorkin-esque moments between characters. Maybe I wish there were more. Maybe I’m longing for Bradley Whitford to show up and save the movie. Maybe he never comes. Maybe no “Sorkin normals” show up to save the movie. Maybe I’m still pissed that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip got canceled. That’s probably it.
Maybe I could have witnessed Philip Seymour Hoffman’s great performance, I kept hearing about – if only I could understand a word he was saying. Maybe I still liked him even though he was talking gibberish. Maybe Julia Roberts could have finally won me over. Probably not. Maybe Tom Hanks did a pretty decent job.
Maybe I felt lost throughout the whole movie. Maybe I didn’t *want* to understand. Maybe I needed subtitles on.
Or maybe I’ll just give this movie 3 out of 5 stars.
Maybe I should wait to post this until morning. Maybe I should sleep on it. Maybe I’ll get rid of some maybes if I wait until tomorrow. But maybe I’d add more. Maybe, I’ll do what I want. It’s my blog, after all.