Universal finally unveiled Mike Nichols’ “Charlie Wilson’s War” last night, and while there are many things to like here, I think it’s a tough sell as a Best Picture nominee and, perhaps, as a Christmas Day attraction for American public that has consistently rejected any Mideast-themed flicks, even with two of America’s most beloved stars. Tom Hanks is at his best in years as Charlie Wilson, a real-life boozing, womanizing liberal Democratic congressman who joins forces with a right-wing Christian evangelical rich Texas heiress (Julia Roberts, too young for the role but quite good) to covertly pump up to a billion dollars’ worth of arms into the hands of Afghan rebels to defeat the Soviet invaders in the early ’80s. Which more or less set the stage for the fall of the Soviet Union. It’s a great subject, and Philip Seymour Hoffman has a juicy role as a State Department officer who helps them. There are lots of laughs and the three stars might get nominated. But at 97 minutes I think the flick seems to lack the gravitas and focus one expects in Best Picture nominees, and seems timid in its vaguely liberal slant. Ronald Reagan and his tacit support of the war is barely mentioned, and there isn’t a hint that most of those weapons probably ended up in the hands of the Taliban. Also going unmentioned in that the CIA trained Osama Bin Laden as part of the Afghan campaign. Is it a coincidence that the fall’s two most strenuously “even-handed” war movies (and make no mistake, this is another war movie, no matter how entertaining) are released by Universal, whose corporate parent is a major war contractor? On the other hand, they also release “The Bourne Ultimatum,” a far better movie that doesn’t pull its political punches at all.