Can you tackle a movie about war and make it funny while not losing its dramatic impact? Well … based on what I saw in this endeavour, the answer is “yes”.
Sometimes it takes saying Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (military code for the letters WTF) to discover the life you were always destined to lead. That’s exactly what happens to cable news producer Kim Baker (Tina Fey) when she realises her routine existence is lacking in something – and decides to “blow it all up” by taking a crazy, WTF assignment in Afghanistan. There, amidst a mind-boggling array of adventurers, militants, warlords and madcap chaos, Kim finds something unexpected: the strength she never knew she had.
The film is based upon the true adventures of war-reporter-in-the-making Kim Barker and her acclaimed autobiography. It is a ribald, hilarious and heartfelt portrait of a woman getting her life together in a global hot spot where everything else seems to be falling apart.
In 2002, reporter Barker arrived for the first time in Kabul and she was completely, perhaps even ridiculously, unprepared for what she was about to experience. Dislodged from her ordinary American life, Barker was now embedded in an out-of-control battle zone rife with danger and corruption by day, and an over-the-top war correspondents’ culture of party-hopping and romantic entanglements by night. It was a sink-or-swim situation … and her head was barely bobbing above water. But unwilling to give up, Barker made a willful journey from clueless cub reporter to savvy, frontline observer.
In the process of trying to make sense of the absurd – both in her personal life and the war zone around her – Barker bumbled right into her true self and calling. Her story, related in a frank, wisecracking memoir that was like no other account of life in wartime written, was lauded by critics. Reviewers and readers alike were lured by the book’s fresh take, no-holds-barred honesty. That is not to overlook the incisively comic pairing of a totally inexperienced American woman with an unseen land of veils, secret sex lives and a convoluted global conflict that even the experts couldn’t get a handle on.
As it turns out, Michio Kakatuni’s admiring review of The Taliban Shuffle in The New York Times unexpectedly inspired the film to come. Kakatuni praised the book’s “satiric verve” and the way it managed to be at once “hilarious and harrowing, witty and illuminating.” At the same time, she wrote prophetically that Barker “depicts herself as a sort of Tina Fey character, who unexpectedly finds herself addicted to the adrenaline rush of war.” That link Kakatuni drew between Barker with Tina Fey hit home with … Tina Fey, who intrigued, took a glance at the book. That look had her hooked.
Fey then took the work to her good friend, Emmy-winning writer Robert Carlock, who worked on American satirical television sitcom 30 Rock, who was responsible for creating the screenplay. She came on board as a producer and the movie’s centerpiece in her most ambitious film to date.
As directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (Crazy, Stupid, Love) put it, she plays a relatable modern working woman, but one who goes far beyond the office confines of her famed portrait of comedy writer Liz Lemon on 30 Rock. This is a complex screenplay, in which many threads need to come together for the whole thing to make sense and I am pleased to say that they do.
Initially, I worried that the comedic focus would take away from the seriousness of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan. But you soon get the fact that these reporters, videographers, cameramen, interpreters, “fixers” and security personnel work hard and play hard. They are in a bubble where their lives are literally on the line and that causes them live it large … and to take risks for the sake of a story. And yes, sometimes it doesn’t work out and the consequences are shattering. Just how far would they go to chase down an exclusive? A long, long way … and that is made clear in the narrative that unfolds.
Fey is solid as a rock (no pun intended), switching seamlessly from comedy to pathos, while Margot Robbie’s star-studded start to her career continues as she nails her role as a rival cable news correspondent who befriends Baker. Providing another point of view as a Lebanese journalist is Sheila Vand, known for her role in Argo. I was also taken by Martin Freeman, who plays a veteran photojournalist with a lust for the ladies, while Billy Bob Thornton is well cast as a hard-nosed military man.
Arguably the movie’s moral compass is provided by a local “fixer”, someone who helps journalists arrange stories and interviews that can make or break their careers. Known as a logistical guru, in this case the fixer is named Fahim Ahmadzai (played by Christopher Abbott – A Most Violent Year) who is, especially at first, indispensable to Baker. Abbott immediately became interested in exploring Ahmadzai’s tumultuous life. “Fahim was a doctor,” explains Abbott, “yet being a fixer was a more profitable way of taking care of his family. “I think he sees his role as that of a protector. Even though he is skeptical … at first, he grows to love her in a platonic sense. It’s a subtle and pure dynamic between them.” Certainly the nuances of that relationship are an important part of the film and what it is saying.
I should also mention rising Australian actor Stephen Peacocke, who takes on the character of Baker’s bodyguard and rival for her affections. Overall, I was intrigued and captivated by Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and how it dealt with the complicated issues at hand – the politics, the people, the rivalry between reporters and the chase for ratings. This is definitely a war movie that is very different to others.
Rated MA, it scores a 7½ to 8 out of 10.
Director: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Cast: Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Billy Bob Thornton
Release Date: 12 May, 2016
Rating: MA15+
Alex First
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television