Julia Roberts is on the list of top earning women in Hollywood, and she keeps getting better as her career progresses. She showed up to the premiere of hernew film “Charlie Wilson's War”. Tom Hanks arrived with his wife Rita If his career thus far is any indication, “Charlie Wilson's War” is a sure fire hit.
The drama centers on a rogue Texas congressman (Hanks) whose penchant for booze and women earned him the nickname Good Time Charlie. He watched his political career almost go down the drain in the early 1980s when he was caught in a hot tub tryst with two cocaine-sniffing showgirls in Las Vegas.
He survived the scandal and ended up overseeing the largest and most successful covert CIA operation in history; his efforts to fund resistance fighters in Afghanistan hastened the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Charlie Wilson's War is the true story of how a playboy congrassman, a renegade CIA agent and a beautiful Houston socialite joined forces to lead the largest and most successful covert operattion in history. Their efforts contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, with consequences that reverberate throughout the world today. Oscar winners Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman team with Academy Award-winning director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to bring George Crile's best-selling book to the screen.
Charlie Wilson(Hanks) was a bachelor congrassman from Texas who had a habit of showing up in hot tubs with strippers and cocaine. His ''Good Time Charlie'' exterior, however, masked an extraordinary mind, a deep sense of patriotism and passion for the underdog, and in the early 1980s the underdog was Afghanistan – which had just been invaded by the Russians.
Charlie's longtime friend and patron and sometime lover was Joanne(Julia Roberts), one of the wealthiest women in Texas and virulent anti-comunist. Believing the Americans response to the Russian invasion was anemic at best, she prods Charlie into doing more for the Mujahideen (Afghan freedom fighters).
Charlie's partner in the uphill endeavor is CIA Agent Gust Avrakotos (Hoffman), blue-collar operative in a company of Ivy League blue bloods. Together, the three of them – Charlie, Joanne and Gust – travel the world to form unlikely alliances among the Pakistans, Israelis, Egyptians, arms dealers, law makers and belly dancer.
Their success was remarkable. Funding for covert operations against the Soviets went from 5 million to 1 billion dollars annualy. The Red Army retreated out of Afghanistan. When asked how group of peasants was able to deliver such a decisive blow to the army of superpower, Pakistani President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq responded simply: ''Charlie did it.''
