ADAMS: 'Charlie's War' entertaining, even if it doesn't tell the whole story

Women, whiskey and war make for a great Hollywood plot.

What's so wild about "Charlie Wilson's War" is that its producers didn't have to use too much of their creative license. And they didn't have to try hard to make the story — on the surface, a seemingly serious look at how a rural representative worked behind closed doors to get Congress to appropriate a billion dollars to provide a tiny country with weapons to fight off the mighty Soviet Union — into a comedy.

I left the media movie screening a couple weeks ago thinking the movie was quite entertaining, but not Oscar-worthy.

Yet, I did leave the theater thinking I'd like to see the movie again.

By all accounts, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman do a fantastic job of portraying the three central figures in the late George Crile's book: Charlie Wilson, the "liberal from Lufkin," Houston socialite Joanne Herring and CIA agent Gust Avrakotos. I say "by all accounts" because I've only covered Charlie once or twice, but both he and Herring have said they are pleased with the way Hanks and Roberts played them. I do think that, for all of the magic Hollywood can bring to the big screen, it couldn't make Hanks appear as physically imposing as Charlie is in real life. When the real Charlie enters a room, because of his height (6-foot-7 or so in cowboy boots) and booming voice, everybody knows it. Hanks doesn't have that presence in the movie. (I cringed when he put his little boots up on a table in one scene.)

Hoffman is getting rave reviews for his performance, and I agree that it stands out.

Sex sells, and it is obvious from the trailers of "Charlie Wilson's War" that Universal Pictures hopes that's the case here. The movie has an "R" rating, and for good reason: It opens with strippers in Charlie's Las Vegas hotel hot tub, and has too many F-bombs to count. Don't take the kids.

After the movie settles in, it goes fast. It comes in at under 100 minutes, and that's really my biggest gripe about it: That doesn't give it any time to provide the great background that Crile's book gives, like the reason Charlie despises communism and how he was able to get Israel to assist with what he calls the greatest covert mission ever. The movie, in my view, goes too far in portraying Charlie as an alcoholic skirt-chaser who, thanks to one beautiful woman who happened to be wealthy and committed to the cause, managed to sneak a billion dollars out of the budget without anybody knowing about it. The true story, which certainly involves the whiskey and women, is that he was in a position to do so because of his incredible ability to make connections and earn favors — while using his playboy lifestyle as a cover and managing to keep getting reelected by a church-going constituency.

I join other reviewers who have said they are looking forward to the director's extended version of the movie on DVD.

Without ruining the ending, I'll say it's quite an interesting commentary on how the whole matter relates to 9/11 — assuming it's true.

Then again, it's hard to believe any of it is for real.