Whiskey Tan­go Foxtrot

If you came across the names Glenn Ficar­ra and John Requa on a movie poster next to the words ​‘from the direc­tors of Focus’ fol­lowed by ​‘from the writer that brought you The Unbreak­able Kim­my Schmidt’, you might not instant­ly feel com­pelled to stump up the price of a movie tick­et to gain their insight into the Afghanistan con­flict. Whiskey Tan­go Fox­trot nim­bly avoids this predica­ment by sug­gest­ing that you are, in fact, pay­ing for Tina Fey to be flown to Afghanistan to light­en the mood over there.

This is the sto­ry of Kim Bak­er (Fey), who embarks on a career as a news reporter after grow­ing tired of her monot­o­nous Amer­i­can life. She takes up a for­eign cor­re­spon­den­cy posi­tion in Afghanistan, pro­duc­ing puff pieces for an audi­ence that has appar­ent­ly grown indif­fer­ent to the engage­ment. Along the way Bak­er dis­cov­ers that adren­a­line is a good dis­trac­tion from the prob­lems in her life. She quick­ly becomes embed­ded in her new role and her new home in Kab­ul, affec­tion­ate­ly known by oth­er ex-pats as ​‘The Kabubble’.

The Ficarra/​Requa direct­ing team has cap­tured some­thing dis­turbing­ly believ­able in the design of Baker’s Kabub­ble. They have spent time authen­ti­cal­ly recre­at­ing the makeshift hos­tel where for­eign jour­nal­ists are sequestered and draw atten­tion to these small islands of ungoverned ter­ri­to­ries that refuse to assim­i­late. This is where US jour­nal­ists and oth­er suf­fi­cient­ly pro­tect­ed for­eign­ers are able to drink, do drugs and shag each oth­er, all while bombs are dropped on the heads of local school kids. It speaks vol­umes about how invest­ed our jour­nal­is­tic ambas­sadors are in the country’s domes­tic affairs. Only when the cam­era is forced to leave this safe zone do we begin to ques­tion the film’s well-mean­ing intentions.

Whiskey Tan­go Fox­trot is based on author Kim Barker’s (clev­er­ly dis­guised here as Kim Bak­er) 2011 mem­oir ​‘The Tal­iban Shuf­fle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pak­istan’, which recounts her real expe­ri­ences while on assign­ment in Afghanistan. Sad­ly, Barker’s first-hand insight is rel­e­gat­ed in favour of Fey’s ​‘I don’t need nobody’ brand of humour. More sub­stance would cer­tain­ly not go amiss next time.