Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
The title is an obvious reference to the ubiquitous shorthand of ‘WTF’ and there are moments when that expression is applicable to the movie’s erratic structure.
Set in Afghanistan in 2004–6 (the highly convincing location shots were filmed in Morocco), it follows the activities of New York TV journalist Kim Baker (Tina Fey) after she has been sent on assignment to Kabul.
Concerned primarily with how armed conflict in an alien environment impacts on those who report on it, directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa make only passing comment on the war itself – one marine is given the chilling line of ‘hearts and minds, the best places to shoot people’.
And if this is any indication, members of the fourth estate spend as much time boozing and getting high at parties as they do at the front line, a depiction that tends to diminish the story’s serious intent. And there is an episode that almost irreparably shreds to pieces the gritty realism that is so expertly created – a nighttime raid to free a Scottish journo kidnapped by the Taliban is accompanied by Harry Nilsson’s Can’t Live If Living Is Without You. It’s too cute by half and it turns the war into little more than the setting for a YouTube video.
For all the times that the movie diminishes itself with indulgences, however, there is an honesty that shines through. The correspondents’ competitive, sometimes blinkered drive to get the headline, regardless of the danger that they might put others in, their addiction to the buzz, and the relationships of carnal gratification that they fall into – it all rings true.
Fey’s urbanity does not seem quite right for her character’s rough’n’tumble career – but maybe that’s the point – and Margo Robbie’s vamp is overdone, but it’s great to see Alfred Molina back as the sleazy Afghan politician, while Christopher Abbott as the translator Fahim steals the show – his farewell to Kim at the airport is a scene of overwhelming intimacy.
Screening at Tweed City – it’s well worth the drive.
