![]() ![]() ![]() And there's satire and tragedy in the truth that the same media that amplified the U.S. The relationship between Kim and Tanya, when considered alongside their reporting in Kabul and the much more restrictive Kandahar, reveals a broad spectrum of women trying leverage power in male-dominated worlds. But as the years drag on and the American public loses interest, her scoops get ignored and her presence in Afghanistan becomes red ink on the ledger.Īny one of these angles is compelling in isolation: The surreal disconnect between journalists' quarters and the streets of Kabul suggests a cultural gap that reporters can never bridge, despite their best efforts. She gravitates toward the glamorous and aggressive reporter Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie), one of her few female colleagues, and soaks in the party atmosphere of hookahs and hookups, leading to a relationship with Iain (Martin Freeman), a roguish photographer from Scotland. What was originally supposed to be a three-month stint turns into something closer to three years, and as Kim establishes solid contacts on the ground, including a highly placed Afghan official (Alfred Molina), the downtime ensnares her in the rowdy, frat-house culture of other press embeds. Hollanek (a terrific Billy Bob Thornton), a cantankerous Marine who protects her as an embedded reporter and offers up a colorful array of unprintable quotes. Her naivete lands her in immediate trouble - if she knew the language, she would have understood a woman screaming, "Cover yourself, you shameless whore," for not covering her head - but Fahim (Christopher Abbott), her interpreter and fixer, patiently steers her in the right direction. ![]() ![]() With name ever-so-slightly changed to forgive some tweaks to Barker's story, Fey stars as Kim Baker, a network news desk jockey who seizes the opportunity to report from Afghanistan in 2004 but comes to the field with little experience. Yet it still doesn't take much squinting to see the M*A*S*H that might have been. The laughs are scattered, the emotions are muted, and the politics are largely toothless. Maybe a rewrite or two, a few dropped subplots, a couple of different casting choices, a little more comedy, some bolder direction - any number of combinations might have given Whiskey Tango Foxtrot that elusive tonal balance it's trying so earnestly to strike. Written by Robert Carlock, Fey's partner on 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (Focus, Crazy Stupid Love), the film does everything just well enough to make you wish it were better. Being all these things at once isn't impossible, but the degree of difficulty on this particular high dive would be enough to make Greg Louganis tremble on the platform. Evan Jonigkeit plays Specialist Coughlin and Tina Fey plays Kim Baker in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.įrank Masi/Courtesy of Paramount Picturesīased on The Taliban Shuffle, a 2011 memoir by Chicago Tribune reporter Kim Barker, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot opens many fronts on the war in Afghanistan: It's a fish-out-of-water comedy, with 30 Rock's Tina Fey fumbling through a different brand of chaos a satirical riff on the absurdities of America's military presence in the Middle East a feminist statement on the marginalization of women in journalism and fundamentalist pockets of Afghanistan a love story in the heightened arena of Kabul (called "the Kabubble") and a scathing critique of American commitment to an increasingly forgotten war. ![]()
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