By NICOLAS RAPOLD
Based on Kim Barker’s memoir, “The Taliban Shuffle,” “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” contains the fondly, proudly recalled details of battle-tested experience. Kim — last name “Baker” in the film — goes from typing TV news in an office to a tour of duty as a journalist in war-ravaged Afghanistan. She dashes into a shootout to get video, parries the clumsy advances of an Afghan government official and frequents the hormone-addled expat party scene.
Somewhere along the way, she also finds herself and cracks a few jokes. That’s not entirely unexpected, because Kim is played by Tina Fey, an old hand at portraying the self-deprecating, nerdy workaholic getting a handle on her personal life. Directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” suggests a serious extension of Ms. Fey’s best-known comedic persona, on more treacherous terrain and with an Afghan culture clash. Instead of walking the absurdist halls of “30 Rock,” Ms. Fey’s character is sucked into the grueling but addictive pursuit of war journalism.
Kim embeds with the military to chase stories, half-reluctantly hooks up with a foul-mouthed British journalist (Martin Freeman) and generally gets her groove back. Bouncing on and offscreen like recurring TV characters are her protective, traditional-minded young fixer, Fahim (Christopher Abbott); her frenemy news colleague Tanya (Margot Robbie); and that goofily forward government official (Alfred Molina).
As written by the TV veteran Robert Carlock, Kim’s rise-and-fade arc is sympathetically rendered, with humor and the urgency of an underhand pitch. The frazzled editing of Kim’s arrival in Kabul as a naïf subsides early, replaced by a narrative glide that hints self-knowledge will emerge from the chaos. Kim’s achievements are swiftly packaged as personal wins, such as when she proves her savvy to a top Marine officer (Billy Bob Thornton) she’s reporting on.
To an extent, the film’s shortfalls feel bound up with high expectations for Ms. Fey. As Kim, she wants to show how the risky search for scoops in Kabul feeds something within her without really sustaining her. But somehow the effort translates into this talented performer holding back a little too much, losing the expressive verve that firing on all pistons as a comic seems to give her. It also doesn’t help that Ms. Fey’s sharpest past work has simultaneously skewered the archetype of the neurotic single professional and complicated it with a self-conscious edge that this film could use.
That’s not to judge “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” (the title is a play on a common profane phrase using the military phonetic alphabet) by its star’s previous successes. (The Afghan setting streamlines the book; Ms. Barker, now an investigative reporter for The New York Times, also went to Pakistan.) But the film’s directors aren’t as sure-footed as they were with the manias of “I Love You Phillip Morris.” The Afghan portrayals bend between affectionate understanding and cheap shots.
Some of the film’s shorthand reflects the cut-to-the-chase caricature of someone forced to adapt to frequently hostile surroundings (in which Kim is harassed as an independent woman in the streets). But the film also rests in a tidiness that’s at odds with the messiness of the milieu. And even when we are exposed to glimpses of wartime violence and menace, it’s undercut by fuzzy platitudes near the end of the film. Ms. Barker seems to have earned the reward of such a reassuring conclusion, but it’s not clear the movie has.
“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for language, sexual content, drug use and images of war. Running time: 1 hour 52 minutes.
A version of this review appears in print on March 4, 2016, on page C6 of the New York edition with the headline: Chaos, Life Lessons and Humor in a War Zone.
Comments are closed.