WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT
Paramount Pictures
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya, d-based on Rotten Tomatoes
Grade: C+
Director: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Written by: Robert Carlock from Kim Barker’s book, “The Taliban Shuffle”
Cast: Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Christopher Abbot, Martin Freeman, Nicholas Braun, Sterling K. Brown, Josh Charles, Alfred Molina
Screened at: AMC 34th St., NYC, 3/1/16
Opens: March 4, 2016
We’ve all had the experience of being fish out of water, being uncomfortable in a place that’s alien to our culture or upbringing. Think of a four-times-a-week patron of burgers and fries at Mickey D’s suddenly asked by his employer to entertain a client at a French restaurant in New York where the waiters look down their noses since the poor employee knows no French and wonders what to do when the sommelier pours him a thimble of wine and waits for a response. Or how about a guy who writes for the sports section of the New York Times and is asked to be imitate the most intelligent of writers and to review films instead of football. It gets worse. Think of a woman who works in a claustrophobic cubicle for the Chicago Tribune trying to work up enthusiasm for the dangers of high fructose corn syrup who is suddenly offered the chance to go to Afghanistan near the middle of war and to be on special guard only partly for the whims of the Taliban but mostly for the macho journalists and Marines who outnumber her about fifty to one. But having been told that the glass ceiling on women may be coming down, she does not want to cower and go back to her office space, so off she goes to downtown Kabul, leaving her boyfriend (Josh Charles), thinking that she will be on assignment for just three months and back to the drudgery of Chicago.
This actually took place. One Kim Barker, who wrote a 400-page book in 2011 called “The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” stayed for years longer than she expected to. The movie version, directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, heretofore known for writing the script for “I Love You Philip Morris” (a cop turns con man) and “Bad Santa” (con man and partner pose as Santa to rob a department store), make a few changes to avoid the appearance of a simple biopic. Kim Barker becomes Kim Baker (Tina Fey) and the Chicago Tribune becomes a New York TV network.
From the time she takes off for Kabul until she leaves at the end of some three years, she faces battles scenes (which she expects) and romance (she’s told that she may be a 4 back home but in a man’s world she’s a 10, and when she returns to New York she is once a 4). A rough flight, plane bouncing around like Xavier Grobet’s shaky hand-held camera, leads her to a party that makes Animal House look like the Red Carpet at the Academy Awards. Her fellow journalists, certainly not weary as they might have been with a nine to five job in the States, party like there’s no tomorrow, and you can’t blame them. She is warned by Col. Hollanek (Billy Bob Thornton) to forget about sex, though the one other woman in the press corps, Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie), asks whether Kim’s security people, especially hunky Kiwi Nic (Stephen Peacocke), are available for a cuddle or two.
Wondering whether there is a shower in the dingy digs and realizing that even peeing will not be as easy as it is in New York despite the big city’s lack of public johns, Kim, who at first thinks she doesn’t have what it takes to last for the three-months’ assignment, winds up spending three years—and all because on a Skype call to her NY boyfriends she discovers that he has another friend with benefits back home.
Col. Hollanke’s order notwithstanding, she winds up bedding Scottish photographer Iain (Martin Freeman) despite having warned him that his quaint accent will not get him far, but what’s a Hollywood movie without heat? Wondering how she ever got into the Afghan scene, she learns a lot from her translator (Christopher Abbot), whose job lands him $125 a day; she is almost killed when she approaches an all-male meeting though outfitted with a colorful burka; she has more than a single interview with the country’s hirsute attorney-general (Alfred Molina), who conveniently shows her the bed behind the curtain in his office and for a price will let her know where her Scottish pal is being holed up by kidnappers.
Tina Fey is a remarkable comedian known particularly for her authentic impression of Sarah Palin and for her sketches on Saturday Night Live. Here she seems a fish out of water for considerably more time than the first week or so, not especially suited for the more serious role she plays. However we hear that the Kim Barker, who wrote the book on which the movie is based, considers Ms. Fey a spot-on alter ego. If you’re hoping for something surreal like the never-predictable “Dr. Strangelove,” you won’t find it here. The movie should have been darker, more satiric, less superficial and not jumping from one scene to the next without a chance for exploration. The laughs are few, the situations never beginning to match up to those found in “Mash,” where the staff of a Korean War hospital use humor and hijinks to survive the insanity of war. At best, the New Mexico Department of Tourism could use some of the exquisite shots of its stark desert and rocky cliffs to attract visitors. The title is euphemistic for WTF.
Rated R. 111 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – C+
Acting – B-
Technical – C+
Overall – C+
