Movie Review: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
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.

Movie Review: Focus

Focus
Directed by: Glenn Ficarra & John Requa.
Written by: Glenn Ficarra & John Requa.
Starring: Will Smith (Nicky), Margot Robbie (Jess), Adrian Martinez (Farhad), Gerald McRaney (Owens), Rodrigo Santoro (Garriga), BD Wong (Liyuan), Brennan Brown (Horst), Robert Taylor (McEwen), Dotan Bonen (Gordon), Griff Furst (Gareth), Stephanie Honoré (Janice).

Focus is far more entertaining than it has any real right to be. The screenplay is more than a little bit of a mess – seemingly striving for a classic three act structure, without finding a way to fuse the acts together in a way that feels natural. As the film races towards it climax, it devolves into clichés of the genre – which we know it will from the outset (when a character explains a classic con in part one, you cannot fool the audience when that con surfaces in act three). Yet, the movie is never less than entertaining and engaging on a moment by moment basis, even if the film never really comes together.

The main reason why Focus works is that it has two excellent movie star performances at its core. The fact that Will Smith is so effortlessly charming isn’t a surprise – he’s one of the last of the true movie stars, who can deliver these types of performances that are not easy, and make it look effortless. It may have been a while since Smith delivered a performance like this – his last film was After Earth, which wasted his talents as a charmer in role that required him to be boring – but he hasn’t lost it. The slightly surprising part is just how good Margot Robbie is as his protégé and eventual love interest. Robbie was brilliant in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street of course, but here she is in full movie star mode, and she pulls it off so wonderfully, that it should make her a real one. The two have instant sexual chemistry – probably because they are the two best looking people in the movie be far – and directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa crib from Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight (okay, they outright steal from it, but if you’re going to steal, steal from the best) in the way they shoot the pair of them as the verbally spar, flirt and fall for each other, even if it isn’t a good idea.

The plot of the movie is a bit of a mess. Smith is Nicky, a veteran conman and Robbie is Jess, a rookie he meets when she tries (unsuccessfully) to run a scam on him. Instead, he ends up showing her a few tricks of the trade – and when, a few days later, she shows up in New Orleans before the Super Bowl, he takes her under his wing, and into his very large crew. Unlike most movie conmen, he isn’t after one big score – but a lot of little scores. That way, he can make a lot of money, and keep the risk low. At least that is what he says in act one. In act two, hell risk everything in a series of ridiculous bets with Liyuan (B.D. Wong) and in act three, set three years later, he’ll go after that one final score, trying to con a racing magnate (Rodirgo Santoro) who has hired Nicky to con his competitors – much to the chagrin of his security man (Gerald McCraney). These are the types of scams Nicky says in the first act to avoid – but hey, the movie really has nowhere to go after act one unless it goes bigger in the latter two acts.

Like I said, as a whole, I don’t think Focus really works. It doesn’t gain momentum as it goes along – it kind of repeatedly builds, climaxes, and starts again. And yet, the individual acts work fairly well as single acts – particularly the second one, set almost entirely in one luxury box at the Super Bowl, which slowly and gradually ups the ante to insane degrees. It works because of Smith, Robbie and Wong – all of whom play off of each other wonderfully. That act two works so well is a disappointment for act three, which is far too busy, has far too many people and rushes through its complicated plot. By this point, the movie has repeatedly tried to fool us – so we no longer trust it. We just keep waiting for the movie to pull the rag out from under us (again) and when it does, it’s hardly shocking.

And yet, I liked the movie more than I probably should have. I enjoyed watching Smith and Robbie and their sexual chemistry – even if I didn’t much care for the story. Some of the supporting characters add interest, and the movie is a lot more fun than most wide release February movies are. Smith and Robbie could be the romantic pair at the heart of a great film like this – Focus isn’t that film, but it will do.

Movie Review: Crazy, Stupid Love

Crazy, Stupid Love ***

Directed by: Glenn Ficarra & John Requa.

Written by: Dan Fogelman.

Starring: Steve Carell (Cal), Ryan Gosling (Jacob), Julianne Moore (Emily), Emma Stone (Hannah), Analeigh Tipton (Jessica), Jonah Bobo (Robbie), Joey King (Molly), Marisa Tomei (Kate), Beth Littleford (Claire), John Carroll Lynch (Bernie), Kevin Bacon (David Lindhagen), Liza Lapira (Liz),  Josh Groban (Richard).

There are some movies in which the performances save the entire film. Crazy, Stupid Love is one of those films. I have made no secret in the past for my disdain for most modern, romantic comedies, which bring nothing new or exciting to the genre that once produced great films. Crazy, Stupid Love is another of them that really doesn’t bring anything new to the table either – and in the film’s final act, it goes wildly over the top and threatens to derail the whole movie. And yet, I liked it. And the reasons why is liked it are mainly Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling, who take standard issue roles, and make them once again interesting, entertaining and unique. That’s a lot harder than it sounds.

Carell plays Cal, who has been married to Emily (Julianne Moore) for nearly 25 years, but is seeing that marriage collapse in front of his eyes. Emily informs him that she wants a divorce. She had a one night stand with a co-worker – the hatred David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon) – and doesn’t know how she feels about anything right now. So Cal, packs his stuff and movies out – much to the chagrin of his two kids, especially 13 year old Robbie (Jonah Bobo), who idolizes his father and through his parents, believes in true love. Especially, with his babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who although she is 5 years older, he believes he can get. And who in turn, has an irrational crush on Cal. Cal spends his new found freedom, sitting in a bar, drinking vodka and cranberry juice, and talking about David Lindhagen. This is where he meets Jacob (Gosling), a ladykiller who takes pity on him, and teaches him how to be just like him. Jacob takes a new woman home every night, but when he meets Hannah (Emma Stone), he thinks it may be different. This could be the girl for him.

Carell is one of the most likable actors working right now. That was the major difference between his version of the asshole boss on The Office, and Ricky Gervais’ in the original British version. You really did hate Gervais’ boss, where as with Carell’s, you almost felt sorry for his complete cluelessness. Here, he plays a guy who got married young, and doesn’t know what to do when his wife leaves him. That he chooses precisely the thing he shouldn’t – which is to go ahead and sleep with any woman that will have him – should make him into an asshole, and yet in Carell’s hands it doesn’t. You feel for this guy who is heartbroken and acting out, even as you know what he is doing is wrong. It’s somewhat similar with Gosling’s Jacob, who we should hate as a sleazy womanizer. And yet, even from the start we don’t. He may use women as objects, but he doesn’t view them as such. He truly does seem to love women – he just doesn’t know how to be in love with one. To a lesser extent, the same can be said about Julianne Moore’s Emily – who after all, caused the divorce with her affair. While Cal certainly isn’t behaving like a rational adult, the truth is, he isn’t really doing anything that wrong. His wife left him before he starting sleeping around, whereas she betrayed him while they were married. Yet once again, Moore turns this character into a sympathetic one, instead of one that invites the audience’s wrath – like most cheaters. It’s in their portrayal of these three characters, who normally we would view as sleazy, that the movie won me over.

The point of the movie, I think, is to show just how irrational love is. Cal, Jacob and Emily are no better equipped to deal with their problems than either Robbie or Jessica, who are supposed to act like crazy, irrational teenagers, because they are. But we expect adults to be better able to deal with these problems – but they aren’t. We’re all blindly searching for love, and making asses of ourselves, no matter how old we are.

Crazy, Stupid Love is not without its problems. As I mentioned before, the final act goes over the top, with a fight sequence that simply isn’t as funny as it was supposed to be, and of course, a big public speech that solves everything. And the film essentially wastes the enormous comic talent of Emma Stone, who isn’t given much interesting to do. Yet, I couldn’t help but like Crazy, Stupid Love. Along with last week’s Friends with Benefits, it gives me hope for the romantic comedy genre.

Movie Review: I Love You, Philip Morris

I Love You Philip Morris *** ½
Directed by: Glenn Ficarra & John Requa.
Written By: John Requa & Glenn Ficarra based on the book by Steven McVicker.
Starring: Jim Carrey (Steven Russell), Ewan McGregor (Phillip Morris), Leslie Mann (Debbie), Rodrigo Santoro (Jimmy Kemple).

It kind of saddens me that here we are in 2010, and yet we still refer to straight actors who play gay characters as “brave”, and that for the most part in Hollywood movies, gay characters are still mainly caracitures, and not real people. Even a great movie like Brokeback Mountain portrays being gay as a burden, and its protagonists as tragic heroes. That’s much better than being the flaming sidekick in a romantic comedy, and was a necessary step to take (even if it should have happened years ago). We aren’t really going to move forward until they make more movies like I Love You Philip Morris – which is an unabashedly jubilant, complex look at a gay man who is happy and sexually satisfied.

Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) is married to a wonderful woman, Debbie (Leslie Mann), is a police officer and the organist at his church. He loves Debbie in his way, and adores his daughter, but he isn’t happy. He is living a double life – sneaking off to have sex with men whenever he has the time. He gets into a car accident, and when he wakes up, he is determined to live the way he wants to – and that means leaving his wife, and coming out of the closet. But as he soon finds out – “being gay is really expensive”. He cannot afford to live the way he wants to by honest means, so he becomes a con artist. Credit card fraud, insurance fraud – whatever will bring him a little extra cash, to allow him and his boyfriend Jimmy (Rodrigo Santoro) to live they way Steven thinks they should. Of course, he is caught, Jimmy leaves him, and he goes to jail. And its there where he meets Philip Morris (Ewan McGregor) – the love of his life. There will be more scams, more prison escapes, more money, more lies, more everything in this film before it all comes crashing down.

The heart of the movie is Jim Carrey – and his exuberant and brilliant performance as Russell. Carrey has always been a great actor underneath his rubber face that he whips out for his big budgeted comedies. When he wants to – like in The Truman Show, Man on the Moon and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – he can restrain himself, and becomes a great actor. I Love You Philip Morris is one of his best performances because he doesn’t restrain himself – and yet he remains a believable character as well. Russell is a larger than life character, and Carrey captures him in all his conflicted, charming glory. You could criticize him for going over the top if you want to – but that’s just where Carrey should be for most of this movie. McGregor is fine in his role as his love interest – the ever supportive “wife” – but this is Carrey’s show from beginning to end, and he delivers a forceful performance that is not easily forgotten. It is one of the best things he has ever done.

Written and directed by Glen Ficcara and John Requa (the writers behind Bad Santa), I Love You Philip Morris is a funny, charming love story between these two gay men. It doesn’t paint them as saints or tragic heroes or sidekicks – but as normal people, head over heels in love, and the lengths in which one of them will go to provide the other with everything they could ever want.

I Love You Philip Morris is a very interesting film – it is a comedy, but not one that makes you laugh constantly, but rather on that you smile at throughout. It is a rather daring picture of Russell and his life – turning this conman into an anti hero of sorts. The direction of the film is superb- keeping things moving throughout. But it really is Carrey’s performance that makes the movie work. He fits into the role effortlessly – while he goes over the top, there is not mugging in the film, and you never have trouble accepting him in the role. It is a great performance, by an actor who may be entering another phase of his career – one that is even more interesting than where he has gone before.