A right Charlie and an Afghan hound; DVDS

Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield, England), May 2, 2008

Byline: By DAMON SMITH Film critic

Charlie Wilson's War (Cert 15, 97 mins, Universal Pictures (UK), Drama/Comedy, also available to buy DVD pounds 19.99)

Starring: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Shiri Appleby, Rachel Nichols, Mary Bonner Baker, Om Puri, Ned Beatty.

Based on true events in the early 80s, Mike Nichols's ribald comedy revolves around Texas congressman Charlie Wilson (Hanks), who answers the plea of on-off socialite lover Joanne Herring (Roberts) to spearhead a political campaign to increase funding for Mujahideen freedom fighters during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Charlie aligns himself with maverick CIA agent Gust Avrakotos (Hoffman) and together they woo high profile figures including Pakistani president Mohammed Zia ul-Haq (Puri) and political heavyweight Doc Long (Beatty), chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. When the Soviets subsequently retreat from Afghanistan, Charlie is feted as a hero, but the terrible legacy of his intervention will not become clear until 2001 ...

Charlie Wilson's War draws a trickle of blood with its timely references to the conflict in the Middle East. But Aaron Sorkin's script stops short of drawing explicit links between American involvement in Afghanistan and the rise of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

Hanks and Roberts are solid but the film only comes to life when Hoffman steals scenes as the sardonic, anti-authoritarian CIA agent who employs blackmail and bullying to get his way.

A breathlessly choreographed sequence shot in Charlie's office, of people dashing in and out of opposing doors at breakneck speed, is quite brilliant. Sadly, nothing else comes close to this virtuoso moment from director Nichols and editors John Bloom and Antonia Van Drimmelen.

Rating: ***

Shrooms (Cert 18, 87 mins, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Horror/Thriller, also available to buy DVD pounds 15.99/Blu-ray pounds 24.99)

Starring: Lindsey Haun, Jack Huston, Rob Hoffman, Maya Hazen, Max Kasch, Alice Greczyn, Sean McGinley, Don Wycherley.

FUN-LOVING Jake (Huston) invites five of his American college friends - sports jock Bluto (Hoffman) and his girlfriend Lisa (Hazen), martial arts fanatic Troy (Kasch) and his hippie chick Holly (Greczyn), and goody-two-shoes Tara (Haun) - to Ireland to sample some of the most potent fungi.

The group crams into a minibus and heads to the woods to search for Liberty Caps, aka magic mushrooms. Unfortunately, Tara ingests the poisonous Deathshead Fungi, which gives her the ability to commune with the dead. In her chemically induced daze, Tara glimpses murder most horrid at the hands of a demonic monk.

Paranoia quickly sweeps through the camp, heightened by the effects of the mushrooms.

Shrooms is a modern day horror with a strong anti-drugs message that marks a departure for Irish director Paddy Breathnach from his usual black comedies. Alas, this film is starved of originality.

Screenwriter Pearse Elliott dispatches his two-dimensional characters at regular intervals, resisting the urge to drown the Emerald Isle in gallons of gore.

The hills are alive with the sound of screaming, but the modest budget rules out elaborate make-up or computer generated special effects.

Rating: ***

CAPTION(S):

FREEDOM FIGHTERS: Tom Hanks as Congressman Charlie Wilson and Julia Roberts as socialite Joanne Herring in Charlie Wilson's War - a ribald comedy