Taxi to the Darkside / Charlie Wilson's War

At first glance Taxi to the Darkside and Charlie Wilson’s War might seem like polar opposites. One is the Academy Award winning documentary about torture abuses and the policy dictated by those in power that have occurred during the Iraq War. The other is soufflé-light take on the secret war between the CIA and Russia in Afghanistan starring Tom hanks and Julia Roberts among others. But if we trace back the effects of the war in Afghanistan we find that the “blowback” from that conflict created the terrorists that were responsible for 9/11 which was used as a reason to invade Iraq in the name of the war on terror. Of course none of this is discussed or even alluded to in the film, but the real Charlie Wilson feels regret that they didn’t follow through with any sort of post-war plan and allowed Afghanistan to become the haven for Al-Quaida. Taxi to the Darkside is much more effective at asking the hard questions and assigning blame for the policies and tactics that detract from our credibility as democratic do-gooders in the world. All the while letting low level soldiers take the blame for the top-down torture policies of the Bush administration. Hopefully this is one area that Obama will not let happen again. I believe that the has said during his campaign that he will shut down Guatanamo bay Prison and try to depoliticize military intelligence so that we won't have another politically motivated war like the current one in Iraq. Getting back to Charlie Wilson’s’ War, I was surprised how substantive it was for a major Hollywood production and just wanted to point out that Philip Seymour Hoffman has once again stolen the show as a Greek-American CIA operative, and is the best thing about the film.

Comments

[Edward]

I'm pretty sure that 'Taxi to the Dark Side' was made by a relatively inexperienced (or at least unknown) Australian director. I heard an interview on a local community radio station I listen to (I think I've tried to convince you to listen too - for the indie music content), and it seemed an unlikely scenario that she would end up with the Oscar - I guess it must have been a quality doco.