From the first sentence, the first word, the first nervily in-drawn breath, this compulsively watchable picture announces itself as the unmistakable work of Aaron Sorkin. His whip-smart, mile-a-minute dialogue made The West Wing deeply addictive on TV, and after uncertain works such as Charlie Wilson's War and the strange, small-screen drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip â€" in which Sorkin's distinctive, faintly martyred seriousness was bafflingly applied to the backstage shenanigans of a fictional television comedy â€" this writer is triumphantly back on form.