Charlie Wilson's War

The New York Times A.O. Scott

More of a hoot than any picture dealing with the bloody, protracted fight between the Soviet Army and the Afghan mujahedeen has any right to be.

Time Richard Corliss

A picture about war and politics that has manages to be both rational and inspirational. It is also the year's funniest smart movie.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

The two actors (Hanks/Seymour Hoffman) have terrific chemistry and riff off one another like partners in a veteran comedy team.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

With its rapid pace, smart screenplay, and top-notch acting, this is one of the 2007 Oscar season's most appealing and compelling adult motion pictures.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Hanks has a good time, romping around with the assurance of a holy fool. He and Roberts seem "actorish," putting on accents and mannerisms, but they're entertaining. Hoffman is something more, a scenery-devouring force of nature irresistible as a cyclone and irreverent as a stand-up comedian at a midnight show.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

It's all about a likable scoundrel who discovers what it means to act out of conviction. The film's underlying twist, though, is tartly ironic.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

A witty, literate, wryly sophisticated parable of American politics: just the kind of movie that Hollywood, in its search for the global audience, supposedly doesn't make anymore.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

You don't often hear critics gripe that a movie isn't long or explicit enough, but Sorkin and Nichols could have gone the extra lap or so to show that Wilson's saga is more than just a story of a good ol' boy accidentally pulling off a remarkable coup; it's a sobering account of the geopolitical hijinks that gave shape to our current world.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Philip Seymour Hoffman steals the movie.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Philip Seymour Hoffman utters one of the year's most refreshing lines in this terrific tale of political wheeling and dealing.

Empire Chris Hewitt

Extremely enjoyable. Although it’s a little tonally unsure, whenever Hanks and Hoffman are on screen, any misgivings are forgiven.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

This movie probably gets the Washington process better than any since Otto Preminger's underrated "Advise & Consent" in 1962. It's not about men of virtue doing the impossible, but men of flaws doing the doable, but just barely.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Charlie Wilson's War is that rare Hollywood commodity these days: a smart, sophisticated entertainment for grownups.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

Dark and funny and mean and sexy, damned near pitch-black-perfect considering that at the end of this boozy comedy you wind up with, oh, Osama bin Laden.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Rude, crude and hilarious, whether he's hitting on Joanne or brokering the sale of Soviet weapons through Israel and Islamic Pakistan, Hoffman is the film's sparking live wire.

USA Today Claudia Puig

This is definitely the year of Philip Seymour Hoffman.In Charlie Wilson's War, he and Tom Hanks make a particularly sharp and engaging duo, bouncing clever lines off each other as if it were a verbal ping-pong match.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

You might think Tom Hanks is miscast as the lovable sinner. Dennis Quaid, maybe, or Woody Harrelson. But Hanks brings something unique to the role.

TV Guide Ken Fox

With 20/20 9/11 hindsight, it's clear that covertly arming the Mujahedeen wasn’t such a good idea after all, but neither Nichols nor Sorkin wants to spoil the fun.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Has a crackling, almost farcical pace, even though its subject matter could not be more serious or complex.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Like Sorkin's D.C.-set TV series, "West Wing," his script for Charlie Wilson's War is full of rapid-fire badinage, with movers and shakers moving smart and shaking snappy as a squad of aides trot along behind, briefcases and coffee cups in tow. A decade - not to mention a war - never went by so quickly.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

It's nice to watch a political movie that, for a change, isn't trying to save our souls. It's possible to have a good time with this movie while, at the same time, regretting all that it isn't.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Of all the Middle East-theme movies this season, Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War is the least political and most entertaining. That doesn't mean it's great, just that it's unimportant.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Clever and enjoyable.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

This is first and foremost a farce, not unlike Nichols' "The Birdcage."

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Takes a kernel of truth and roasts it into a popcorn movie. There's terrific fun to be had, and much wry comedy too. What's missing, surprisingly given the subject matter, is any real sense of gravity.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Julia Roberts has never played a dowager before, but heaven knows she makes a good, and funny, one.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

In this film, directed by Mike Nichols in one of his most satirical moods and scripted by Hollywood's most politically astute writer Aaron Sorkin, a womanizing, alcoholic, easily tempted bachelor gets elected in a Texas district that doesn't care what he does as long as he brings home the bacon.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Philip Seymour Hoffman carries the movie. As the CIA operative who hates Communists and his myopic superiors in equal measure, he has a wily, don’t-give-a-shit drive that makes you wish he’d been in Baghdad in 2003.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

It packs political machination, helicopter gunships, single-malt whiskey, Las Vegas, Islamabad, naked butts, and eight years of war. The film, adapted from George Crile’s book, doesn’t always work, but it sure offers value for money.

Newsweek David Ansen

Of course, hanging over this ironic tale is the deeper historical irony--that many of the "good guy" rebels Charlie is funding (and we're cheering) will become our mortal enemies...It's as if "Titanic" ended with a celebratory shipboard banquet, followed by a postscript: by the way, it sank.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Watching Charlie Wilson’s War is like sitting through a very long episode of "The West Wing."

Slate Dana Stevens

A funny, sprightly tribute to the American can-do spirit, with a bleak ending that suggests that our plucky protagonist may have just dug his own (or, in this case, his country's) grave.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Nichols succeeds in spinning an entertaining yarn, but the cautionary aspects feel fatally undernourished.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It is well made as far as it goes. I wish it went beyond its own carefully prescribed limits of the commercially acceptable.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Is, in its way, an apolitical comedy about politics. Or at least a naïve one, since those weapons likely eventually made their way into the hands of Al Qaeda.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Perhaps there was some confusion – should we play this as a lark or a lesson in geopolitical unrest? – or maybe there was some studio involvement to defang the politics; whatever the case, the noncommittal Charlie Wilson's War treads a good-natured but yawning in-between.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Overall, Charlie Wilson's War is glib rather than witty, one of those films that comes off as being more pleased with itself than it has a right to be. It also suffers from being not all of a piece, with mismatched elements struggling to cohere.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It's a fascinating story, but Mr. Nichols and his actors never stop reminding us how fascinating it is. With the exception of Mr. Hoffman, a master of understatement, everyone acts up a storm, yet context is lacking.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

As creator and head writer of "The West Wing," Aaron Sorkin had a gift for making policy debate seem sexy, but what worked in the context of that liberal fantasy founders badly amid the realpolitik of this cold war drama.