At a time when average citizens find it progressively hopeless to discuss the cause and effect of current American foreign policy, perhaps the approach of Mike Nichols’ Charlie Wilson’s War is the only way to keep people talking. Telling the true story of a behaviorally questionable Texan congressman with enough idealism and smarts to affect political change in the Cold War, the film thoughtfully convinces us of its seemingly unbelievable tale while gliding as lightly as its hero does through an unknown slice of political history. It is shocking that the story remained unknown for so long because the direct and crucial effect was no less than the retreat of the Soviets from Afghanistan.

The movie stars Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson, a Texas congressman who is hardly a role model as he hangs out with strippers, snorts coke, and drinks too much in his spare time. He is far from ignorant of world affairs, however, as we see him in the beginning intently listening to Dan Rather reporting on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, much to the chagrin of the strippers in the bathtub with him. And as the story progresses, we gradually see that his interest is not without idealism.

He first meets a rich, devout, right wing socialite and former TV show hostess, Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), who is not shy to share her hatred of the communists and how she is repelled by the atrocities of the Soviets towards Afghanistan. She has a plan carved out for him: to provide the Afghans with the arms to defend themselves by shooting down Soviet helicopters. Knowing the American government could not fathom the possibility of lending their own weapons to the Afghan citizens, her suggestion is to negotiate a deal between the Israelis who secretly have numerous Soviet RPGs and Pakistan, where many Afghan refugees flood over to across the border to escape.

Charlie is certainly in a good position to do this, being on the Defense Appropriations Committee, but is completely floored by this idea. His mind is soon swayed, however, after an arranged meeting with President Zia of Pakistan and a tour through a camp of displaced refugees including many children with limbs missing. He, along with his assistant, Bonnie Bach (Amy Adams), looks for a CIA operative to give him the mechanical details of the situation.

Enter the scene-stealer of the movie, the almost unrecognizable Phillip Seymour Hoffman as disgruntled CIA operative Gust Avrakotos. His first entrance into the story is pure dynamite as he erupts in front of a superior about an assignment he believes he deserved and did not get presumably due to his chubby, mousy appearance, and he breaks the window of his office to spite him. Later, when Charlie finally taps him as his CIA man and brings him into his office, there is a great moment when Charlie’s attempt to conceal a scandal is to no avail when it turns out the sneaky Gust has hidden a bug on his specially delivered scotch.