"Charlie Wilson's War" (based on a true story and book by George Crile) comes at you from every direction, never really choosing just one emotion to convey.

Tom Hanks plays Wilson, a real congressman from Texas with real flaws who found a real cause: defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Initially the movie rallies the audience to Wilson's camp and his mission. Wilson is convinced the right thing to do is arm Afghan refugees with the weaponry needed to shoot down Russian helicopters, and the film has us rooting for Wilson's success. It's like rooting for the underdog; everyone loves the underdog.

Except after you adopt this underdog, it becomes rabid and escapes out of your yard and terrorizes the neighborhood for years. And here's the kicker: You know your underdog is trouble, but you take him in anyway.

That's what watching "Charlie Wilson's War" is like. It's a true story, after all, so there is no escaping destiny.

For me, the experience was even odder because I got so swept up in the characters (particularly Philip Seymour Hoffman's CIA operative, who is Wilson's ally) that I forgot for a solid hour what exactly I was rooting for. Hoffman, by the way, steals the entire film. He is funny enough on his own that much of the film feels like a comedy. Hoffman is so good, in fact, that I wonder in hindsight if he makes "Charlie Wilson's War" seem better than it actually is.

The catch is simple (and once I remembered where this story was inevitably headed, I felt my stomach turn). This triumphant underdog does become rabid. We know all too well that while Osama bin Laden is never on screen, he is part of this movie. The dots are impossible not to connect. Charlie Wilson's war helped pave the way for bin Laden's.

The movie offers you a smorgasbord of emotion. You will laugh and root for the underdog because it makes sense. In the end, though, you will feel guilty for doing so - just like Charlie Wilson.

It's as if screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (creator of "The West Wing") and director Mike Nichols are maliciously setting you up on a rollercoaster that peeks with joyous triumph only to quickly and suddenly plummet into guilt and despair. And yet it is hard to blame them for doing their jobs so well, just as it is hard to blame Wilson for doing what he believed to be right.