The Siege...

I've had this in my collection for donkey's years, and I've never watched it. Insanely belatedly I got to it ... decent enough, wasn't balled over, not overly fussed. Perhaps it's just odd watching it in a 'post 9/11' world, if I dare be so brand-named about our current climate, especially as the flick is set in New York. At times it does feel like it descends into 'lefty preaching' while making a valid point. It's insanely difficult to make a serious political picture, especially when you're within the time of Islamic Terrorism (although the terrorists are hardly Islamic ... they're simply terrorists). It's just like the slew of Iraq-related political dramas that are over-run with Hollywood afford-to-be-liberals, it just feels forced and finger-waggy. It feels smug, it feels too soon, it feels like concluding the unconcluded. I certainly hope we don't have yet another stupidly premature 'pull out at 98% complete' on our hands, if you start something, you should be up for finishing it (not thinking it'll be done in a month and then party time, which is just a stupid way of thinking and strategising, considering the enemy and style of warfare). Charlie Wilson's War, which focussed on Afghanistan during the late 80s, made a deft point of showing that the government couldn't be arsed to go that last mile, after blasting their way through the previous blood-soaked slog. This of course brings me onto the bleeding heart, lefty chattering class that spread themselves amongst the news media (both printed and televised), pondering over anything and everything from an afford-to-be-liberal stance. You get the impression they'd think otherwise (at least some of them), if they were a struggling plumber with a wife and three kids, for example. Don't mistake me for a Fox News loving righty either, my politics lie in the common sense middle ground (but far from the absolute shit of the current Labour government who've royally shafted the UK for 11 and a half years now, and have introduced legislation/proposals that are far, far more right-winged than the UK's 'right of centre' Conservative Party would ever dare - ID Cards, communications databases, the new preposterously ill-thought-out laws dealing with prostitution, the ghastly mis-use of the terrorism legislation and so-on ... I could go on, but I'd just piss myself right off). Needless to say, I'm not a fan of Brown & Co. Rolling back from my tangent, and returning to The Siege - meh, I guess.

Charlie Bartlett...

I'd seen the adverts on telly, I'd heard something about it being compared to a film I liked (maybe it was compared to Napoleon Dynamite or something), and I knew it had Robert Downey Jr in it. Didn't know anything else, gave it a shot, and after a dull first five or ten minutes, I actually got quite into it and ultimately rather enjoyed it. Basically, rich kid gets shafted out of yet another posh school, turns up at an American comprehensive where it's all a bit rough and such, uses his family's on-call psychiatrist (and some psychology books) to gather a bunch of pills so he can medicate the entire school to deal with their problems.

Essentially, Bartlett just wants to be popular, and this is his elbow into the room so-to-speak. A fairly quirky, high-school set comedy drama type dealio ... with a great, and rather deshevled Downey Jr ... and that chick who was in a few scenes in 40 Year Old Virgin, playing the daughter of the woman that Steve Carell's character ends up boffing ... and the dude who's gonna play the Russian geezer on Star Trek, apparently.

Charlie Wilson's War...

While the content is before my political time, and certainly even (for half of the plot at least) just flat-out before my time full stop, the subject still makes an impact. It's certainly understandable why this film was made, what with the current situation in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

What I found most affecting about the film, was that it showed us how much money and effort was put into fighting the 'Commie Bastard' Russians in Afghanistan ($1 billion) and how 'they' just ditched the battered and bruised people (over half of which were under the age of 14) by not ponying up a comparatively measly sum of cash for education and the like.

It speaks volumes about the current situation, a catch 22 even. Either leave the troops in both territories and lose further lives (on both sides), or pull out too soon yet again after turning two country's population's lives upside down before the bad guys ultimately regain control, therefore making the entire war completely pointless, thus making the lives lost on both sides mean absolutely nothing - nobody would have died for anything. You get the feeling that the US government doesn't have a great deal of patience for anything outside of easy-to-understand 'shoot and kill' that lasts for anything longer than a year ... both from this film, and from the current political climate.

News flash, wars take a long time, they're devastating and horrible things which happen because they seek to put a stop to something else that is devastating and horrible from happening. It's the ultimate catch 22, but it cannot be achieved in six months, and the fighting certainly doesn't stop after the last bullets have been fired.

History is tragically repeating itself, and this is one of the issues that the darkly comic Charlie Wilson's War flags up for our attention.

While I didn't understand certain things regarding the American political system (hell, it's hard enough to understand the absolute garbage being thrown around by the current government here in the UK), just as a subtle black comedy it works, and reminds us that there's not enough Tom Hanks on the big screen these days.

A bit more thought is required for this one, and at times it can become quite dark when signaling up the horrid reality of the Afghan plight, but it can equally be enjoyed as a political farce in some respects, and indeed the two central performances (Hanks & Hoffman) are a joy to watch.

Ultimately it is a refreshing watch, it never decidedly strays into either side of the political spectrum, instead deciding to leave the politics and ethics balanced and open to the viewer's own interpretation. Indeed, the closing statement denoting "...we just fucked up the end game" speaks volumes in itself.