When Kim Baker sat down to write her book chronicling her experiences as a war reporter for a major network in Afghanistan, she probably never imagined her tale would make it to the big screen. It has, thankfully as it is a fantastic piece exploring many themes — most notably the place of women in various cultures. And Baker must be truly thankful that the person cast to play her in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is Tina Fey. The SNL veteran could not have been a better choice.
Fey is not just humorous, which we all know she can be, but she gets to show off quite a bit of dramatic acting chops. After all, reporting on the horrors of war, by nature, makes the tone of Fey’s latest film darker than her others. This is a serious story, but it is told with a dash of laugh out loud and smile-inducing moments throughout.
We meet Fey’s Baker as she is working a desk in New York for a major news network. She seems bored in her life. Her long-term boyfriend, Chris (Josh Charles), supports her dreams and when she decides to accept a position as an on-camera reporter in the war-torn region of Afghanistan, she takes it. Before we know it, the fish out of water lands in Kabul (or the Ka-bubble as her fellow journalists call it). Among others, she meets Tanya Vanderpoel, a British reporter — played by Margot Robbie (Suicide Squad) and Martin Freeman’s Scottish photo journalist Iain MacKelpie.
Among her first stories is a home run. Baker is embedded with Billy Bob Thornton’s General Hollanek and captures on tape when his troops overtake an ambush by Taliban forces. It becomes quickly clear that the Taliban just seem to refuse to admit defeat – despite being already overrun by U.S. forces.
Quickly, Baker gets swept up in the life in the Ka-bubble and that includes lots of alcohol and the rush she feels — and some would say becomes addicted to — when adrenaline pumps through the body after your innate fight or flight mechanisms kick into gear. Not surprising, danger is around every corner.
The problem arises, and this is where Robert Carlock’s screenplay (based on Baker’s book The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan) does its best, when instead of fighting the people who caused 9/11 — our attention is turned elsewhere.
This is a story about one woman’s triumphant experiences being a war reporter in the boys’ club of war reporting. This is also a story about how American forces were doing some good winning the “hearts and minds” of the Afghan people and forging new paths for women in that country. Under Taliban rule, these women were basically only good for one thing — having and raising children. Now, they were receiving educational opportunities and professional opportunities that were mere pipe dreams years prior. Yet, that Taliban threat (as demonstrated in that ambush scene) is ever-present. They are still pulling strings behind-the-scenes and schools for women are being burned and there is much worse going on.
Baker wants to report on this and she does on occasion, but as the Iraq War ramps up and the attention of the U.S. Government and the U.S. and world media shifts to the other Middle Eastern nation, the spotlight and resources are diminished on Afghanistan. Where once good was slowly progressing across the land, now it appears the Taliban and their archaic culture and political morays are once again permeating the landscape.
It’s frustrating. But, that is why Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is so much more than a run-of-the-mill war journalism film. It works on many layers, not the least of which is its celebration of feminism, freedom and the corporate running of the press that fails those the institution is seeking to inform.
Fey is fantastic. She goes deep in the film and we hope to see her shine in this kind of light more in the future. The actress commands attention in every frame of the film and she carries it. That is not an easy task for a performer who started as a writer on that iconic late night comedy sketch show. And she is not alone. Robbie shows again why she is everywhere and that promise she showed in The Wolf of Wall Street is explosively on display in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
Also enjoyable is witnessing another side of Freeman. The man who is known for playing uptight British parts (and Hobbits) is given the chance to embody a freer Scottish bloke whose views on conflict-centric photo journalism pepper the story with eyebrow-raising realism.
Supreme credit for the film’s command of its audience has to go to co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. As we stated, there are a lot of balls in the air to keep moving in this picture. They deliver them in a concise and clear manner that allows us to be entertained while simultaneously informed and moved.
If anything, the film goes on a little too long. It peters out with about 15 to 20 minutes to go and that is not necessarily anyone’s fault. This is a true story after all. This is how it all played out. We just think maybe it should have ended at a certain point and then the “what happened after” could have been detailed in a fade-to-black, pre-credits, written update.
Grade: B