This is a pleasant enough film, but I simply didn't see what all the awards talk is about.
It's involving, even engaging, but not on a deeply emotional level. In some ways reminiscent of "Forrest Gump," CWW maintains a cuteness in the face of serious circumstances. The humor is done well, but the serious edge feels somewhat underdeveloped, under affecting.
There are certainly moments of genius. I love the scene where Wilson alternates his meeting with Gust, the CIA agent, regarding the pending international crisis and with his group of busty secretaries about his own personal crisis. Hoffman really makes that work. In fact, though I'm not really a Hoffman fan – he's fantastic in this film.
That said, the production also sports scenes riddled with exposition, sometimes redundantly so. For instance, in the opening scene Charlie sits naked in a spa with two strippers and a playmate, in the same room people are getting high, yet the those scripting the dialogue of the film still seem obliged to tell us in words that Charlie is a bit of a party guy.
Truly, it's a B movie, but it does manage to do something of import. In a light-hearted way it displays the international ignorance many Americans boast regarding the world we live in. Hopefully, this will widen some otherwise rather narrow views. At the same time, the film tempers its own fire (more or less at the last minute) with the sobering realization that lasting solutions are not always so simply found.
Overall grade, just barely a B+.
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