Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

I am impressed. This is one of the few films which has inspired me to read the source material; the autobiography by the journalist Kim Baker..

The film starts with comic moments as greenhorn middle-America Kim Baker (Tina Fey) arrives in a war zone. Then, the film darkens as it touches on the corruption of the expatriate community and the seduction of war reporting.

Surprisingly, Tina Fey can act in a dramatic role. Being comic with a straight face, facing danger, fending off romeos, and falling in love. In the end, Kim Baker rediscovers herself and returns home.

The film deals superficially with the horror faced by Afghan civilians and the root causes of the insurgency. However, this is the story of a white woman in a foreign land.

Overall, the film was predictable but lightly touches the soul. Credit to the editor for walking the difficult line between entertainment and horror. The rest of the cast did a creditable job.

One of the reasons that I write reviews of movies is that I hope to turn people on to good movies that might otherwise fly under their radar.

Such is my hope with Tina Fey's latest film WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT - a satirical view of the conflict in Afghanistan as seen through the eyes of a novice International reporter (Fey). What starts out as a funny and corny "fish out of water" movie, slowly morphs into a more serious film about the addictive nature of constantly being in a warzone situation.

Fey is perfectly cast as the central character - war correspondent Kim Baker - who heads to an overseas assignment in Afghanistan to escape a rather humdrum life. I was a little nervous, at first, as all the funny parts that were in the trailer were in the first 1/2 hour of this film - and Fey handles those with aplomb. She is a gifted comedienne, so these scenes looked effortless for her. It is her transition to a more serious reporter, addicted to the adrenaline of her job that Fey really shines. I was impressed with her serious work in THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU and was anxious when it looked like her career regressed with last December's SISTERS, but I'm happy to say she continues to grow as an actress and she is strong in this part.

But, this movie is more than just Fey. She has a very strong supporting cast around her - Martin Freeman as an Irish photographer, Margot Robbie (who continues to grow as an actress) as a friend/journalist competitor to Fey, Alfred Molina as an Afghanistan politician and newcomer (at least to me) Christoper Abbott as Fey's interpreter - they all bring something interesting to the table that helps this movie along.

Special mention should be made of Billy Bob Thornton's General Hollander - the US Commander in the region. While he does not have many scenes in the movie, he brings a presence that is heads and shoulders above everyone else when he is on screen. This fits well in this movie, for the Commanding General in that region should be heads and shoulders above the rest. He also gave me the best laugh in this movie (a joke I will not spoil here).

This movie is much, much more than a simple rom-com or military comedy, it is a Comedy/Drama that brings quite a bit of heart to it. I would strongly encourage you to seek this one out, you'll be glad you did.

8 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to Bank (of Marquis)

Tina Fey is Tina Fey in this movie. I loved the fact that she didn't pretend to be anything else. Westerners behaved like westerners in this movie.

Many war films try to sell you the emotional experience of a war. This is an American woman's story in Afganistan. Her world is other people like her and one slim contact with the world that she was in. Yes the movie is self-centered. Let's not bullshit ourselves into thinking we can be a whole lot more than that.

OK, so Tina Fey isn't actually a soldier, but she's not the horny bimbo who gets busy with George Clooney in Three Kings either. Its now clear that Tina Fey is one of the most multi-talented people in the entertainment world, and this movie will go far toward solidifying her reputation as a broad gauge polymath. Aside from everything else, its clear she's a wonderful actor, and interestingly enough all the really strong central characters in this movie are indeed women (as Tina ruefully laments that she should have googled one particular character.) Don't worry, there's plenty of blood and guts, bad language, and techno porn for the teen-aged boys (why on earth would anybody come to a R rated movie with WTF as the title and give it a bad review for being shocked by language, sex, and violence. Don't however, expect Margot Robbie or anyone else to replay Margot's Wolf of Wall Street shenanigans.) Even the Anglo actors playing indigini (as we called the locals in Viet nam) are wonderful. Well worth seeing, worth owning.

Wow. If I wasn't already a fan of Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey, I sure am now. The same barbed wit is evident throughout Whiskey, Tengo Foxtrot (military acronym for What the F***), but this isn't a skit. Tina Fey portrays a nuanced character, a low level employee of a network news department who makes an impulsive career move and ends up as a war correspondent in Afghanistan. Doesn't sound entertaining? It probably wouldn't be without the amazing touch Fey puts on her character. While it's not a war movie, it certainly captures the hopelessness of a culture doomed to perpetual war in the arm pit of the world. Afghanistan ultimately gets dismissed as a place undeserving of American military support, or even interest. The people shoot each other and blow each other up in conflict over interpretations of their medieval religion, and the movie correctly concludes "who cares"? But the Americans and individual Afghanis touch each others lives in ways that transcend cynicism. Fey and her Saturday Night Live co-producer Lorne Michaels find humor and humanity in ways that make you root for all the characters. The movie has no dull moments, and the pacing keeps you in your seat. Like Afghanistan itself, there were potential landmines of preachiness, boring politics and hopelessness...and WTF avoids them all. There are subtle, brilliant, and stereotype breaking supporting roles by Billy Bob Thornton, Alfred Molina, (Spiderman 2), Margot Robbie (Wolf of Wall Street) and Martin Freeman (whose correspondent character is as far from Bilbo Baggins as Kabul is from New York.) Three cheers for Tina Fey, who manages to give us entertainment and a smile while showing us how lucky we are to be Americans. WTF could have been boring and preachy, and instead gives us a feel good movie from the most unlikely place on earth.