Video-game violence and retro, pre-AIDS 1980s sexual antics blend in Charlie Wilson's War, an often hilarious, satiric look back at a true story of how a filandering congressman (Tom Hanks), a Texas socialite (Juliet Roberts) and a downtrodden spy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) were able to mastermind a covert war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Directed by Mike Nichols and written by West Wing's Aaron Sorkin, the film turns preachy at the end, wagging a finger at Congress for losing interest in Afghanistan after the Russkies had been successfully kicked out. According to the film, if Congress had voted to spend just $1 million for some schools to win hearts and minds, the Taleban would not have taken hold, nor would have Osama bin Laden been able to attract followers and cause 9/11. It's a simplistic message that won't win any converts from right wingers, will insult the liberal intelligentisia and won't matter to the apathetic boobs who are watching the film for the T&A shots (at least one of which is censored for Thailand audiences with some odd, flesh-toned fuzzy blurring of some nipples).

Hanks is servicable in his role as the playboy Texas congressman Charlie Wilson, who is the unlikely hero of this story. As a congressman from a district that neither wants nor needs anything, he's able to vote yes on just about every measure, earning him more IOUs from colleagues than any other lawmaker. Some flashy stunt casting comes into play  with Julia Roberts portraying a flamboyant, sexed-up yet pious conservative Houston socialite who sympathsizes with Pakistan and Afghanistan. The real meat in this picture somes from Philip Seymour Hoffman, who chews up the scenery and spits it out as a downtrodden career CIA field agent with no use for diplomacy.

"Can we just take a moment to reflect on all of the ways that you are a douche bag?"

The film starts out light and airy, as Wilson is hanging out in a Vegas hotel room, in a hot-tub with a television producer, a starlet and some strippers. Conveniently, he sees Dan Rather on TV, reporting from Afghanistan, and is inspired. He heads back to Washington and orders some secret intelligence slush fund doubled from $5 million to $10 million - not much, but it's a start.

The best scene comes when Charlie is facing the dual threats of the producer saying Charlie had been snoring cocaine and Hoffman's spy is hanging around. The spy is sent out of the room while the lovely Charlie's Angels PR team (one of whom is called lovingly "Jail Bait") comes in to run press releases by the congressman. Yet the spy has heard everything, even though there's a "thick ass" door.

The spy now has Charlie in his pocket, but the two need each other, and they need Julia Roberts's characters' ability to schmooze, and play the right-wing evangelical card (and make a convert of Ned Beaty's senior lawmaker). And they need to somehow get Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan into a necessarily loose alliance to provide arms to the Afghans. They need to bring Amy Adams into focus more often.

It get pretty grim around the Afghan border, with children with their arms blown off. In in Afghansistan, the Russian helicopters run roughshod over the land like its their own private game of Grand Theft Auto.

Yes, history shows that the right weapons were placed in the right hands at the right time, and those helicopters started falling from the sky, and soon after the cold war was over.

"These things happened," says the end title card. "They were glorious and they changed the world... and then we fucked up the endgame."