Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Plot synopsis:
The following is based on a true story.The movie opens in the year 2006 with Kim Baker (Tina Fey) partying at a house in Kabul, Afghanistan with mostly military men while bombs are heard going off in the distance. They pause momentarily... then continue partying.We flash back to three years earlier. Kim is a cubicle worker at a news station in New York City and is gathered in a room by a supervisor with all the other single, childless staff who are assigned to cover the war. Kim has a boyfriend who is not thrilled that she is leaving to be an international war correspondent in Kabul.When Kim arrives in Kabul, she is greeted at the airport by Nic, one of her security staff assigned to protect her and a local guide and translator, named Fahim, who becomes a good friend to her. A local woman calls her a whore for not having her hair covered and Fahim tells her she is saying welcome. She meets her co-workers Tall Brian, a cameraman, and colleagues Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie), a London-based English reporter at the house she will be staying. When Kim first meets Tanya, Tanya asks Kim permission to sleep with her security staff saying the UK hires fat Americans to protect her, but Tanya has hot Kiwis from New Zealand and Aussies from Australia that she wants to sleep with. Kim obliges and tells Tanya that she has a boyfriend back home, so she's not interested in any men in Kabul. Tanya tells Kim she may be a 6 in New York but she's a 9 in Kabul to which Kim asks Tanya does that make Tanya a 15?Kim often goes out to party with Tanya and another lady named Shakira, a local Afghan. She jokes with Shakira about her name who tells her the meaning of Shakira and Kim tells her that her name just means white woman.At the U.S. Embassy party, a man approaches Tanya and Kim with a line about not minding to talk to two beautiful women. Tanya tells him to fuck off. Tanya has a freelance photographer friend named Iain MacKelpie (Martin Freeman) who expresses interest in Kim but is told by Tanya that Kim has a boyfriend.Kim meets up with Marine General Hollanek (Billy Bob Thornton) whose men she is allowed to interview and go with on routine patrols. The General tells her not to sleep with any of his Marines and not to distract them from their job then they will get along.On one routine patrol, they come under fire, and Kim jumps out with her camera to film the firefight with Fahim desperately trying to get her back into the car out of harms way. A Marine ends the firefight with a grenade launcher. The General gives a lecture about uses resources wisely saying the cost of the grenade is far more than the Toyota pickup truck they destroyed and the General notices Kim has been filming the entire time telling Kim to get some clearly amused that she jumped into the action.The Marines keep repairing a local village well, that they assume is being bombed by terrorists. The village women inform Kim that they are destroying the well because their time walking down to the river is when they can gossip and walk about free without their men. Kim tells the General this who agrees not to repair the well and not to tell the men of the village the real reason why that their well kept being destroyed, and letting the women of the village have their secret.Kim gains The General's respect, and he tells her that Marines say Oorah and the Navy say Hooyah, and she shouldn't mix them up.Kim interviews Specialist Coughlin, who looks after her in a brotherly way telling her to stay hydrated which leads to a funny scene with Kim having to pee really bad and the whole convoy, has to stop and wait for her to relieve herself. Specialist Coughlin says he never loads his gun anymore and gets transferred to another unit soon after.Kim, with help from her guide Fahim, interviews a local politician named Ali who many think will become the second most powerful man in Kabul and Ali takes a liking to Kim.Kim is about to head back to New York to see her boyfriend when Ali calls her to let her know he has set up an interview for her with a local warlord, so Kim stays in Kabul and tells her boyfriend the next day that she has to stay for work.When Fahim, Nic and Kim go to meet the warlord, who speaks no English. He communicates with Kim through Fahim, asking her to pray for him with Fahim lying to him saying that Kim isn't Muslim but Turkish, so he wouldn't understand it anyways, and at one point, the warlord tells Fahim that she looks like a handsome boy. Fahim is seen reading Oprah Magazine, which Kim has told him will help him to understand women.Fahim gets married and invites Kim, Tanya, and Shakira to the wedding. Kim asks Fahim if she should buy a dress and Fahim says it's not necessary as long as Kim his friend is there. Kim shows up at the wedding in regular clothes while Shakira and Tanya are elegantly dressed.Kim and her boyfriend try to Skype over the next 2-3 years, always encountering technical difficulties until she is skyping with him when she sees him in bed with another woman and ends their relationship.Tanya, Shakira, and Kim talk about why they came to Kabul. Kim tells a story or looking at the same bump in the carpet in her gym under her stationary bike that she somehow was moving backward after all her pedaling on the bike, and she felt stuck in her relationship with her mildly depressed boyfriend she wasn't sure if she ever truly liked. Shakira tells Kim that is the most white woman story she ever heard.Now a single woman, Kim almost sleeps with Nic, her security guard, but doesn't. Ali, the local politician, comes by drunk, dancing in the street asking her if she will be his special friend and she refuses. Kim gets dropped off at the wrong house coming home from partying one night, and Iain becomes angry with Nic for not protecting her. Iain punches Nic in the face, Nic falls and hits his head on a coffee table and has a broken nose. Kim is impressed and ends up sleeping with Iain.Kim wakes up regretting it, and tells Iain it won't happen again but the next night they wake up in bed together again. Iain and Kim start spending a lot of time together. They hold hands in a marketplace and a woman angrily breaks them apart shaming them for showing affection in public. Kim puts her security and Fahim in increasingly dangerous situations trying to get great footage for the news. Tanya uses a computer tech named Jaweed who is always watching donkey porn to use his connections to try to get her an exclusive interview but when they drive out to meet up with them they are ambushed, and an air strike saves them. Jaweed dies, and Tanya is injured with a broken arm and several bruises on her face, but she is elated that they filmed the confrontation, and she is getting airtime.Over the next few weeks, Kim is jealous that Tanya is getting more airtime yet feels guilty that she is jealous of her when her friend almost died. Fahim tells Kim he will not work for her if she continues to put herself in harms way. Fahim tells her a story about junkies who always need a fix and tells Kim to be careful that she is chasing after her fix of being on camera. Fahim says he has children and a wife he needs to think of. Kim argues with her boss, Chris, on the phone that she needs more resources and airtime, but Chris says that's what Jerry the new boss has told him to do. Kim angrily tells Chris that she is flying out to speak to Jerry herself.Kim travels to New York City and storms in Jerry's office surprised to find out that her new boss Jerry is a woman named Geri (Cherry Jones). Geri tells Kim that America doesn't want to see the war on the news anymore, or she needs more interesting stories like Tanya. Geri tells Kim that she is hiring Tanya and assumed that Tanya and Kim flew in together. Kim is shocked and runs into a conference room to find Tanya. Tanya tells her that she would have done the same thing. Kim tells her it's not about the job, that Jaweed died, and she used people. Tanya tells her that Specialist Coughlin, one of the first men Kim interviewed, lost both of his legs to an IED blast when he was transferred soon after her interview with him. Kim leaves feeling dejected. She calls Iain, who tells her she needs a break from Kabul and tells her to meet him in Glasgow so she takes a flight there.When Kim's flight lands, she receives text messages from her colleagues in Kabul that Iain has gone missing and may have been kidnapped. Kim rushes back to Kabul and is greeted by Fahim at the airport, and she goes to ask the General if he can help her get Iain. Kim says she can get his Marines screen time that could mean more funds from the government. He says he can't take his Marines in blind, and she needs more Intel about where Iain is.Kim goes to Ali asking if she can help her find Iain and blackmails him into helping her with camera footage of him dancing in the street drunk. Tall Brian goes with the Marines to film them on their rescue mission to save Iain. Iain returns and is grateful to Kim. Kim asks where will this relationship end and tells Iain that Kabul is not normal, and she needs to leave before she convinced herself that it is. Kim tells Iain she asked her job for a transfer to Washington D.C. or New York City and tells him he knows where he can find her if he wants his scarf back.Kim leaves Kabul and shares a tender goodbye with Fahim, who says he had Irish twins with his wife in the time that Kim has been in Kabul and at the airport Kim asks Fahim if the junkies ever got better. She tells him she wants to hug him, but they briefly brush their hands as he passes Kim her luggage.Kim goes to see Specialist Coughlin, who is a double amputee but seems to be enjoying his life with his wife and child. Kim tells him she feels guilty for what happened to him. Coughlin tells her she gives herself too much credit to think she caused any of it. He doesn't blame her and doesn't want her to blame herself. Coughlin reminds her that a lot of things happened in Kabul and that they were trying to make the best of a bad situation they had not control over.The final scene shows a flash-forward on Kim, now a regular news anchor in New York, about to interview Iain MacKelpie on her show for a book he has written. Iain tells her he will be in New York soon for his book tour and asks her if she would meet him like to meet him for coffee and Kim smiles.

Tags: violence, comedy, murder

Review:
W.T.F. is a movie which tries to belong in too many genres simultaneously, including Comedy, Drama, Romance, War, Action, Documentary, and has a statement to make about pretty much everything including long-distance relationships, politics, professionalism, cultural differences etc.
etc.Without excelling in any of that, it manages to be a well balanced movie in the 110 minutes of its duration.Tina Fey plays Kim Barker, a real person and an actual journalist, who is dissatisfying from her career covering low profile stories, and decides to go to Afghanistan as a war correspondent for a few months, or so she thought...The movie has a good structure.
It starts as a comedy, something you might expect because of the main actress, but soon the situations become real and more dramatic.The rest of the cast includes well known actors like Alfred Molina, Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman and Margot Robbie.Overall: Don't expect a comedy because of Tina Fey. It starts like that but it evolves to other genres really quick.
One of the reasons that I write reviews of movies is that I hope to turn people on to good movies that might otherwise fly under their radar.Such is my hope with Tina Fey's latest film WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT - a satirical view of the conflict in Afghanistan as seen through the eyes of a novice International reporter (Fey).
What starts out as a funny and corny "fish out of water" movie, slowly morphs into a more serious film about the addictive nature of constantly being in a warzone situation.Fey is perfectly cast as the central character - war correspondent Kim Baker - who heads to an overseas assignment in Afghanistan to escape a rather humdrum life.
I was impressed with her serious work in THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU and was anxious when it looked like her career regressed with last December's SISTERS, but I'm happy to say she continues to grow as an actress and she is strong in this part.But, this movie is more than just Fey. She has a very strong supporting cast around her - Martin Freeman as an Irish photographer, Margot Robbie (who continues to grow as an actress) as a friend/journalist competitor to Fey, Alfred Molina as an Afghanistan politician and newcomer (at least to me) Christoper Abbott as Fey's interpreter - they all bring something interesting to the table that helps this movie along.Special mention should be made of Billy Bob Thornton's General Hollander - the US Commander in the region.
At this point we are at most 10 minutes into the movie but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: this movie is the big screen adaptation of the book "The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan" by real-life TV reporter Kim Barker (not sure why in the movie the names becomes "Baker").
Then, the film darkens as it touches on the corruption of the expatriate community and the seduction of war reporting.Surprisingly, Tina Fey can act in a dramatic role.
Tina Fey portrays a nuanced character, a low level employee of a network news department who makes an impulsive career move and ends up as a war correspondent in Afghanistan.
There are subtle, brilliant, and stereotype breaking supporting roles by Billy Bob Thornton, Alfred Molina, (Spiderman 2), Margot Robbie (Wolf of Wall Street) and Martin Freeman (whose correspondent character is as far from Bilbo Baggins as Kabul is from New York.) Three cheers for Tina Fey, who manages to give us entertainment and a smile while showing us how lucky we are to be Americans.
I could digest some of the American jingoism paraded recently in all their sci-fi movies, but when you are delivering something about a region torn by American hegemonic war of 16 years (and counting), the jokes about Afghan men humping donkeys as a joke just brings bad taste in the mouth.The movie is based on the memoirs of a news journalist (real life Kim Baker book ' The Taliban shuffle') who is reluctantly pushed in the war torn Afghanistan to cover the media news coverage.
Whether Tina has grown to be great at many genres OR the movie was simply destined for her real life character.The story-telling and events flow like nobody's business and the representation of Afghan People in the movie is beyond great.
Or even a drama with a lot of funny moments.I don't think I've ever seen Tina Fey do such a great job in a dramatic role, and Martin Freeman was equally engaging.
Here's a film, like the aforementioned two, featuring a slew of great actors, but delightfully merging comedy and drama to create consistent humor, affable character chemistry, and some considerably commendable pathos during the final act.The film revolves around Kim Baker (Tina Fey), a simple scriptwriter for Television news, who gets the opportunity to prove herself when she takes a job as a war correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2003 during America's "Operation Enduring Freedom" mission.
Planning to only stay three months, which turns into calling her base in Kubal "home" for several years, Kim develops a friendship with coworker/war journalist Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie), in addition to Marine Corps General Hollanek (Billy Bob Thornton), who leads the band of men Kim is following and interviewing.Screenwriter Robert Carlock (who wrote "30 Rock," also starring Fey) always seems to have a fairly loose grip on the film and its events, allowing the characters to essentially meander within their surroundings and create their own subplots.
This feels very much like a "character-created" film, in a sense that there's a beautiful, natural presence to the events in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" that feels like it was created from the film's characters rather than a slew of overworked people behind the scenes.This sort of casual, believable environment makes the film that much more entertaining and believable, yet much of that is attributable to the wonderful Tina Fey. Once again, Fey proves herself as one of the funniest and most charming actresses of our time.
Could they not find any Afghan or Pakistani actors or were they just inundated with employment opportunities?Tina Fey plays Kim Baker an inexperienced television journalist who because she is single and without kids is sent to Afghanistan as a war journalist where her naivety threatens to make her a laughing stock but soon gets involved in the action and quickly becomes an adrenaline junkie putting herself and her crew in danger.The journalists from around the world spend time in what is called the Kabubble, drinking, partying, having casual sex.
Baker is told early on that she might not be deemed too be attractive back home but here with the men either in the armed forces, her bodyguards and others in the Kabubble she would be deemed a 10 with plenty of people trying it on with her.Baker bonds with the other journalists and falls for a Scottish war photographer (Martin Freeman) who later gets kidnapped, she rebuffs the advances of a slimy Afghan politician and schemes to advance her career in the television network.The film is mildly amusing in places but is certainly not a freewheeling black comedy about the absurdity of war.
The good news is this movie is very funny and very tender, bringing back the very best of Tina Fey as Liz Lemon from her time at 30 Rock.
Fey's cohorts on the front line of journalism include Margot Robbie and Martin Freeman as well as a Marine Colonel played jovially by Billy Bob Thornton and the Attorney General of Afghanistan played incredibly not seriously by Alfred Molina.Baker arrives and gets thrown to the wolves and uses her I don't care about life attitude to get involved in a gunfight straightaway leading to her being embraced instantly by her peers.
The director done a good job by making a small town in Mexico look exactly like a war zone in Afghanistan, and most of the characters, especially Billy Bob Thornton, put in a good performance but Tina Fey would have been my last choice to play Kim Baker.
With that aside, I did get to see a side of war, which I found quite educational but I still think that there were parts of the movie which needed the emotional touch.Budget: $35million Worldwide Gross: $25millionI recommend this movie to people who are into their biography/drama/comedies, starring Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Alfred Molina, Christopher Abbott, Billy Bob Thornton, Josh Charles, Cherry Jones and Nicholas Braun.
This is based upon a true storyJournalist Kim Baker (Tina Fey) becomes a war correspondent in Afghanistan.Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot are codes for WTF.
were producer Lorne Michaels and super comic Tina Fey thinking when, coming from Saturday Night Live, they offer a film that doesn't know if it's a drama or a comedy.
Certainly Alfred Molina's goofy character, Afghan Attorney General Ali Massoud Sadiq, can qualify as embarrassingly over the top.However, one of the better lines comes from rival reporter Tanya (Margot Robbie) when she greets Kim with the observation that "In New York, you're like a six, seven?
I'm referring here to the endless variations of Liz Lemmon: A career woman, often the smartest guy in the room, who's main internal conflict is how to rationalize herself as she enters middle age and the end of baby-making territory.As far as I can discern, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and other films of hers like Baby Mama or Admissions are not projects close to Fey's heart but script creations of other people in which Fey happened to be cast because her career-woman-on-the-verge-of-becoming-a-spinster is striking some sort of demographic.
Combined as an acronym, "WTF" is often used today as an expression of extreme surprise, incredulity, anger, or some combination thereof, e.g., "WHAT THE F(bleep)?!?" (Ya feel me?) Accordingly, it is in this context that the film "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" refers to the experience of a westerner becoming personally involved in Operation Enduring Freedom, popularly known as the War in Afghanistan or the Afghanistan War. It is also instructive to note that this film is oft identified as a war comedy, a label supported by the prominent image of popular comedienne Tina Fey on the movie poster and by the video clips and narration used in the theatrical trailer.
Recounting reporter Kim Barker's (Baker in the film) journey from desk-jockey to on-the-ground war correspondent in Afghanistan (circa 2003-2006), the movie leans heavily on clichéd fish-out-of-water antics for the first act to squeeze out a couple of titter-worthy moments.
I'm sure Tina Fey took the role of actress and producer with the best of intentions but this is a movie which feels like it lasts forever.
The film centres on Tina Fey's Kim Barker, a 40-something single TV reporter with a steady boyfriend but who surprises herself by volunteering for a supposed six-month "field-trip" to Afghanistan in tow with the American Marines to no doubt give purpose to her life.
On the Afghani side she connects with a young doctor played by Christopher Abbott who acts as her sometime driver and a lecherous local politician soon to be Attorney General played by a bearded-up, slightly over-the-top and almost unrecognisable Alfred Molina.There were some acerbic touches of inevitable black humour, like how Fey's "babe-rating" of about 6 in America becomes a 9.5 in sex-starved Afghanistan, her receiving a live "Dear John / Julia" communication by video-link and how she strings along Molina's "special- friend" aspirations to her own eventual advantage mixed in with the hedonistic off-duty lifestyle of the foreigners as well as her sometimes reckless attempts to get newsworthy stories to maintain and justify her position to her executive bosses back home.I found the movie somewhat hit and miss in its aims.
The movie was created to give you feeling of what it was like to be a newspaper correspondent in Afghanistan during the war, and it does a pretty good job of that, but there is no good story to go with it.
Based on the memoir The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Kim Barker, 'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot' is a mostly entertaining War-Dramedy, that is anchored by a Stupendous Performance by Tina Fey. The usually comedic actress, boasts range & class in her first dramatic role (with comic touches, of course).'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot' Synopsis: A journalist Kim Baker (Fey) recounts her wartime coverage in Afghanistan.'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot' explores Baker's life-changing journey, with moments of fine comedy & dramatic undertones.
Working as a war correspondent in Afghanistan proves challenging for a female journalist in this Tina Fey film based on the actual experiences of reporter Kim Barker.
Margot Robbie plays her journalist friend in Afghanistan and she gives a really good performance in this film and has really good chemistry with Fey and you do buy their friendship for the majority of the movie.
Martin Freeman plays her photographer in this film and he does a really good job, it takes a minute to get used to his Scottish accent but I liked his character and found him fun to watch.
Robert Carlock adapted the true story Kim Barker shared in her book 'The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan' and as directed by both Glenn icarra and John Requa the result if a timely study of the seemingly endless wars in the Middle East with a strange label of a laugh out loud comedy.
In this age of acronyms it is not difficult to figure out the meaning of the title (WTF) and that sets the tone of this true story about journalist Kim Baker (Tina Fey), fed up with her boring life with boyfriend Chris (Josh Charles), moves from her cubicle work at a news station to accept an offer from her boss as one of the few unmarried childless reporters to take on Afghanistan as a war correspondent after the US invades Iraq – much like the well-known counterpart Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie) who has become the on the line face in Kabul.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot follows the story of Kim Baker a war correspondent journalist and her experiences in Afganistan based on a book by her "The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan".I'll be honest i have not read the book but i heard great things and reviews.Starring Tina Fey in a different role than we expected her she is just incredible she manages from her days in SNL and 30 Rock to her starring roles in Mean Girls , Baby Mama and her most recent role Sisters to get you laughing hard.The movie is directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa who they previously directed the amazing Crazy Stupid Love and in my opinion the great Focus with a script by Robert Carlock which at times doesn't make the jump from comedic to serious as well as we want to so it ends up messing the tone .But still there's so much to the story and the interactions between Barker and Tanya(the great Margot Robbie) the help of her driver(a stunning Christopher Abbott) and a photographer(the charming Martin Freeman) and also the great Billy Bob Thornton.
The film stars Tina Fey, and it was directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (the team that also helmed movies like 'CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.' and 'FOCUS').
I could point out the obvious talents of Billy Bob Thornton as a Marine general or Martin Freeman as photo journalist Iain MacKelpie, but I would definitely like to sing praise to Christopher Abbott as Fahim Ahmadzai who played a local driver in Afghanistan who relationship with Tiny Fey's charter, Kim Baker was beautifully done.I think what I like most is that it was a refreshing change up in a contemporary war movie, as we got to see the lives of journalist living and working in Afghanistan, rather than the usual soldier movieIt was funny, dramatic and romantic all at the same time.
It's not.The movie follows the story of Tina Fey's character; the situations are real, the people seem real.
This movie was FAR better than I expected, Tina Fey, always good, was great, Martin Freeman was super watchable, Billy Bob Thornton looked better than I've seen him in years, and (can't believe I'm saying this) Margot Robbie did an excellent job portraying reporters not as seekers of the truth, which they aren't, but as vain, self-absorbed, opportunists more than willing to put others in harm's way if it gets their station a ratings bump.
Based on true events beginning in 2003, this film follows Kim Baker (played by Tina Fey), a news correspondent who takes a three month job as an international news reporter in Afghanistan during the War on Terror.
Sharing ties with fellow news reporter Tanya Vanderpoel (played by Margot Robbie) and freelance photographer Iain MacKelpie (played by Martin Freeman), Baker comes face-to-face with the ruthless reality of war in the Middle East that makes her job far more terrifying than he initially expected.In contrary to the trailer may lead you to believe, this film is not all laughs and fun.
Her comedic chemistry with the supporting cast Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Billy Bob Thornton along with Christopher Abbott and Alfred Molina in the controversially white-washed roles works decently; even with the laughs are more than not hit-and-miss.Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a fine comedic take on war satire that boasts the solid likeness of lead Tiny Fey, even if it struggles with a semi-coherent script.
I never read up on this movie, other than it was Tina Fey as a reporter in a middle east war zone.
A realistic movie showcasing the talents of Tina Fey. A number of reviewers have criticized the sometimes coarse language in this film but given the pressures of working in war zones, the language is not out of line with reality.
Many people think of Tina Fey as a comedian, and although there were funny moments in this film - it is not a comedy.