Review – Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

The term Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a military saying that, when using NATO phonetic, spells out WTF, which means exactly what you think it does, “What the Fuck”.  This was a very appropriate title for movie, as I said those three words to myself quite a few times during this uneven, redundant war comedy.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, based on the autobiographical book “The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan” by Kim Barker, is about Kim’s time covering the news in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Tina Fey plays Kim and she does a solid job, giving the most dramatic role I’ve seen her in.  They don’t really establish Kim as a character, however.  She is going through a midlife crises of sorts, but the film doesn’t really touch upon it too much.  At the beginning of the movie, we see she’s bored with her job, then in the next scene, she’s in Afghanistan, and then we get a quick conversation in the middle of the film, and that’s about it.  She’s a pretty one note character.  All that’s really established about Kim is that she’s a foul mouthed, quick witted news reporter, so basically Tina Fey.

The rest of the cast includes Margot Robbie who’s basically useless in the film, but her charisma shines on screen.  Martin Freeman plays Kim’s love interest that I didn’t buy at all.  Alfred Molina offers up some awkward laughs as the horny Afghanistan political leader Ali Massoud Sadiq.  And, in another case of Hollywood white-washing, Christopher Abbott, who gave one my favorite performances of 2015 in James White, plays Kim’s Afghani friend and guide Fahim.

This movie is all over the place tonally.  I think it’s suppose to be a comedy, but I wasn’t laughing that often.  The woman sitting next to me was laughing a lot, so maybe I missed something, but I doubt it.  The movies shows Kim’s time in Afghanistan as one giant, hilarious party, and then will randomly show a scene of Kim or somebody else getting shot at, which usually last a couple minutes and then it goes back to the party that is Afghanistan.  It didn’t flow at all.  Also, like I said above, the love story is awful.  It is really random and didn’t work in the film.  This movie also needed an editor.  I understand they wanted to tell Kim’s whole story, but it got really redundant and spanned too many years that I lost track of how long she’d actually been there.

I’ve heard great things about Kim’s book, but unfortunately, it hasn’t translated into a good movie.  What sounds like a movie that could have been an interesting, new take on the war in Afghanistan ends up being a tonally uneven and redundant.  Again, the woman next to me seemed to like it a lot, so maybe I missed something.  But again, I doubt it.

MY RATING – 1.5/4