Wired Movie Review | Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

[Narrator] So, Tina Fey, Margot Robbie,

and Bilbo Baggins walk into Kabul.

No, this isn't the set up to a terrible joke.

It's the plot to Fey's new movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

The film is based on TV journalist Kim Barker's

simultaneously funny and sad memoir The Taliban Shuffle,

about her time as a war correspondent

in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It's a lot more Good Morning Vietnam than Apocalypse Now.

WTF, yes, that title is intentional,

starts with Fey's Kim being sent to Kabul

where she's confronted with the messy realities

of embedding in a war zone.

She makes friends with Margot Robbie's

Tanya Vanderpoel and photographer Ian MacKelpie,

played by Martin Freeman.

See, we told you Bilbo was in on this joke.

But just as she learns to love the adrenaline tinged life

of a war correspondent, she begins to realize

the terrible realities in Afghanistan

and the ickiness of trying to get ratings from them.

This movie could have easily fumbled

by trying to ring too many laughs out of war,

We're still five mikes,

media asset must be dumping out.

No, I'm just getting my pants on.

[Narrator] But just when it almost goes too far

it stops on a dime, like a perfectly timed punchline.

That's not to say that Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is perfect.

Coming as it does on the heels of #OscarsSoWhite

it's unfortunate to see Kim's Afghan fixer

played by someone who's last major role

was literally James White in James White.

Well, that is officially the most American

white lady story I've ever heard.

[Narrator] Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is far from being

the whole picture of the war in Afghanistan,

but what it does show, it shows in very sharp focus.