Directed by: Glenn Ficarra & John Requa.
Written by: Robert Carlock based on the book by Kim Barker.
Starring: Tina Fey (Kim Baker), Margot Robbie (Tanya Vanderpoel), Martin Freeman (Iain MacKelpie), Alfred Molina (Ali Massoud Sadiq), Christopher Abbott (Fahim Ahmadzai), Billy Bob Thornton (General Hollanek), Nicholas Braun (Tall Brian), Stephen Peacocke (Nic), Sheila Vand (Shakira Khar), Evan Jonigkeit (Specialist Coughlin), Fahim Anwar (Jaweed), Josh Charles (Chris), Cherry Jones (Geri Taub).
As
a TV actress, few people in recent memory have had as much success as Tina. On
30 Rock, as creator of the show, she was able to craft her Liz Lemon to her
strong suit – more often than not being the normal center of a crazy show, who wasn’t
always quite so normal. She was the straight woman for the likes of Tracey
Morgan, Alec Baldwin and Jane Krakowski on that show – but often, she was as
funny, if not funnier than any of them. She was an everywoman, but also her own
specific character – which was tricky, but she pulled it off seemingly
effortlessly. As a movie actress, Fey has struggled a lot more to find the
right roles for her. Even on TV, she struggles a little bit outside her comfort
zone – her Marcia Clarke on the otherwise wonderful Fey created The Unbreakable
Kimmy Schmidt didn’t work – and looks downright cruel now in light of what
Sarah Paulsen is doing in the wonderful The People vs. O.J. Simpson.
Part
of this is undeniably because, apart from Mean Girls, she hasn’t written any of
her movies – and the old boys club of Hollywood doesn’t really know what to do
with someone like Fey – who exudes humor and intelligence, whose persona is
that of a career woman over 40 – who isn’t necessarily looking for someone to
settle down with. Romantic comedy plots are built around women like Fey
recognizing that she needs to kick back and relax – get out of the office, and
just meet a nice man and settle down to domestic bliss – which is the
antithesis to Fey’s persona. I’ve enjoyed some of her movies to be sure – she is
a gifted comedic actress, yet she has yet to have a role that rivals Liz Lemon.
Whiskey
Tango Foxtrot is, it must be said, also not nearly as good as 30 Rock – but it
is her first movie role that seems to have been tailored specifically for Fey,
and yet also allows her to stretch a little in terms of crossing that magical
divide into drama. In the film, Fey plays Kim Baker, a 40 something reporter
living in New York, who has a very unglamorous of writing copy for news anchors
to deliver. It’s a comfy job – but Baker is unhappy. She’s unmarried, but does
have a boyfriend (Josh Charles – who is becoming the go to for seemingly nice
guy boyfriends/husbands/afterthoughts in movies like this) – but that doesn’t seem
to bother her much. But she’s stuck. It’s 2003, and the network is looking for
volunteers to head over to Kabul, Afghanistan to cover the war that is already
becoming an afterthought in the wake of Iraq. She gets there – and has no real
idea what she’s doing. She fumbles and stumbles for a bit – and then finds her
bearings. Not only is she good at this job – she loves it, and starts getting
addicted to adrenaline of being in a warzone. What she needs though are good
stories – and there is a numbing sameness in this war that makes them hard to
find.
Other
characters enter her bubble – or “Kabubble” as they say in the movie. There’s
Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie), a fellow female journalist, who is addicted
to life well before Kim ever sets foot in Afghanistan. She helps show Kim the ropes
– but she is even more career centrist than Kim is. Of course, there has to be
a love interest – and that’s Martin Freeman’s Iain MacKelpie – a Scottish
photographer, who of course is an asshole at first, before revealing his more
human side. There’s a wonderful supporting turn by Billy Bob Thornton as a
deadpan general – which continues to show just how good Thornton is at comedy.
Of
course, we also have to mention the whitewashing that Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
does. There are basically only two major roles for Afghans in the film – the broad
role of the corrupt Attorney General with a crush on Kim and the sympathetic
role of Baker’s guide/translator Fahim, who she grows genuinely close to. The
filmmakers cast two gifted actors in those roles – Alfred Molina has a lot of
fun as the Attorney General, delivering the type broad comedic performance that
you hire Alfred Molina to give – fake beard and all. And Christopher Abbott, so
good in last year’s James White, finds some quietly touching moments in his
performance of the soft spoken Fahim – who understands everything, and
genuinely cares about Baker. Both are fine performances – but both are given to
non-Afghan, even non-Arab actors. It’s a source of continual depression on my
part that even the few Hollywood movies that have good roles for non-white
actors, continually cast white actors in those roles anyway. I know the
filmmakers said they searched, and cast the best actors available – and again,
both Molina and Abbott are fine in the film, but come on. Michael Fassbender
may be the best actor available, but I still wouldn’t cast him to play Malcolm
X.
The
whitewashing in a problem in the movie to be sure, but not a fatal one. Overall,
the film works best when it’s focused on Baker anyway – moving from scared to
confident to risk taking to stupid risk taking, before she smartly pulls back.
It’s a portrait of the type of women we do not see often enough in American
movies. Yes, there is a love interest in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot – but that
relationship hardly defines Baker – and it’s not something that she’s willing
to sacrifice her career for. It’s a wonderful showcase for Fey – particularly in
the way that it eases her character into those changes. It starts off very much
like a Tina Fey comedy, and then becomes more and more dramatic as it moves
along – and Fey holds it together the whole time. It’s hardly a great movie – I’m
not sure it has anything all that new to add to conversation, either about
journalism or the wars in Afghanistan – but it’s a solid movie – and hopefully
represents the start of a new phase in Fey’s movie career. She’s surely capable
of it.
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