Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, 2016

Directed by Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, 112 minutes

Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Alfred Molina, Billy Bob Thornton

Review by Katherine Scheetz

It’s been a good couple of months for journalism in film. Robert Carlock’s dark comedy adapted screenplay from Kim Barker’s “The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan” is another notch on the totem.

Kim Baker (Fey) is an unattached and bored desk journalist in 2003 when the war in Iraq takes off, who jumps at an assignment reporting in Afghanistan for three months and ends up staying three years.

Baker slides on her belly under fire toward explosions by day and knocks back shots, porn and men by night with fellow adrenaline junkie journalists in the Kabul bubble or “Kabubble.” Her normal is completely recalibrated through bizarre occurrences ranging from solicitations by the attorney general of Afghanistan (Molina) to pouring her drunk heart out to a Chinese whore after her first big break. Despite a job well done by Freeman as Baker’s love interest, Iain MacKelpie, it isn’t where the film should have ended. Spoiler alert: this is not a love story, at least not that kind.

Qualifications apply, for this is a largely different film from the recent success, Spotlight (2015). But both films do their journalist roots credit with ceaselessly excellent writing and gripping pace. For Whiskey, uncensored lines roll straight out of the gate from General Hollanek (Thornton) and Tanya Vanderpoel (Robbie). Carlock doesn’t coddle us by explaining the vernacular of the Kabubble – except for “wet hooch” – that one we needed help with.

Unfortunately, because of the chaos of Kabul, Ficarra’s attempt at shining a light on Baker’s women’s right stories took a back seat, which is damn shame. Between the burkas (Fey whips out a quippy “I’m so pretty I don’t even want to vote” from beneath the blue covering) in the film and the stories of education and lifestyle Baker uncovered, the platform was there for the taking.

In spite of the madness, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a highly entertaining and highly educational swing at the unglamorous but exotic life journalism can bring down upon its unsuspecting victims.

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