3 stars (out of 5)
This latest effort from co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (after their pickpocket character piece Focus) is adapted by Robert Carlock from Kim Barker’s memoir The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days In Afghanistan And Pakistan, and winds up a little queasy and unsure at times, just like its protagonist. It’s funny but not really a comedy, tough and even shocking but not strictly 100% intense human drama, neutral instead of critical of America or the Islamic world, and not as powerful a depiction of the media’s densensitisation in war zones as something like A Thousand Times Good Night or Welcome To Sarajevo. And Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (or WTF in the military phonetic alphabet) indeed.
We open with American Kim Baker (not Barker, and played by co-producer Tina Fey) partying down in Kabul in 2006, as amassed media types dance to House Of Pain’s Jump Around while bombs drop, and then flash back three years to see how she got there and why she’s so unfazed by danger. Originally a rather bored news writer, Baker was selected to be a war correspondent and sent to report on ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’, much to the displeasure of her gormless boyfriend Chris (oily Josh Charles).
And three months naturally spins out to far longer, as Kim hangs with glam reporter Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie from Focus), fights off the advances of foul-mouthed and karaoke-friendly Scotsman Ian MacKelpie (Martin Freeman), is pursued by horny politician Ali Massoud Sadiq (Alfred Molina) and considers getting off with her security guard Nic (cool Stephen Peacocke, another Aussie). She’s also a major pain in the butt for General Hollanek (Billy Bob Thornton), and it’s while on missions with his men that she sees the carnage and bloodshed in close-up, and seems to grow used to it… or maybe not.
Fey is tough and amusing here, and there’s good support from Freeman, Peacocke, Thornton and sure-to-be-major-star Robbie, and yet Ficarra and Requa skim over important scenes and somewhat mess up others (including at least one major credibility gap sequence that would have left most of the main characters beaten to death in reality). Chances are you’ll still respond to the dark wit, but you probably won’t be, ahem, Lima Yankee Foxtrot Alpha Oscar.
I Wake Up Screening 