Tina Fey in a Kabulbubble – WTF (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot)

Tinsel & Tine’s Look at WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT

By Editor, Le Anne Lindsay

Leave it to Tina Fey to develop a movie with an acronym of “WTF”, you know cast and crew had fun with that double meaning straight through post-production.  Of course, trying to use the title of the book by Kim Barker, which the screenplay is based upon – “The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” would have been a bit of a mouthful for a movie. It seems Fey’s interest in the book got piqued when a New York Times book review described Kim as a “Sorta Tina Fey character”.

In the movie Fey’s character is Kim Baker and instead of a print journalist, she’s a TV news copywriter, turned TV news journalist, when her station asks if any of the single people on the team would be willing to go to Afghanistan for 3 months to report on the war. Baker accepts even though she’s in a long-term relationship, but it’s one that’s often long distance and doesn’t seem very satisfying. In fact, nothing in her life feel satisfying at the moment, so why not mix it up in a war torn country?

Acclimating to her accommodations, the culture, the feces in the air & where to pee, wasn’t easy; but Baker seems to take to the danger and the passion to get the story, almost immediately – sometimes out doing gorgeous English journalist, Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie). She also takes to the hard partying nights that seem to go hand and hand with the adrenaline filled days, which make up the life of photographers, journalists, reporters and bodyguards in Kabul; it becomes an addictive way of life, hence “Kabulbubble”. 

“We’re human beings and we’re flawed, and I want to be able to show that,” Barker said. “It’s super easy, as a foreign correspondent, to write a book where you look like the smartest person in the room … [but] I didn’t want to do that book. I wanted to show the learning curve that I had, and I wanted to make it funny…” – Interview with the real Kim Barker by Kaitlyn Locke The Daily Free Press

And Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is funny, the kind of comedy I like, where the tone is laced with the humor of the situation, rather than situational comedy. I didn’t see the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler Christmas release Sisters; that to me looks like something I’d only watch on a Saturday at midnight on VH1, while flicking to reruns of Castle on the commercials. But I did see Admission (click for T&T post) and This is Where I Leave You (click for T&T post) and although neither of  those movies did well at the box office, what they have in common with “WTF” is the fact that Tina Fey makes a very likable protagonist. But same can be said for Margot Robbie who starred in directors Glenn Ficarra & John Requa’s con movie of last year Focus (click for T&T post). You’d think she’d just be an annoying, overly pretty blonde, but the moment she stole focus in The Wolf of Wall Street (click for T&T post) you knew you’d be seeing her again soon. And Robbie just keeps being more and more appealing, not just because she’s gorgeous, but because her strength is in her personality and talent. She’s very watchable.

Islamic Burqa

Bottom line: There’s a lot of talk about looks and what your rating would be in the States vs the desert, which almost makes a case for why Islamic women are covered head to foot. “WTF” is not a must see in the theaters type movie, but you won’t feel cheated paying for it either. Some of the finer points of getting certain interviews from certain factions in certain regions of the country, totally went over my head, which isn’t a criticism, it actually makes the movie more authentic, although I felt the climax was a bit contrived, otherwise Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is steadily entertaining.

T &T’s LAMB Score: 3 outta 5

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