Following up on her recent comedy duo effort with Amy Poehler in Sisters, Tina Fey returned in 2016 in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, the cinematic adaptation of Kim Barker’s Afghanistan war correspondent memoir, The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This time around she teams up with Martin Freeman and Margot Robbie in a story of life on the front line with equal measures of drama and comedy thrown into the mix.
Release date
The film hit the big screen in the United States on the 4th March 2016, but the UK release date didn’t come around until Friday the 22nd April 2016. It’s a 2D-only screening and goes up against Idris Elba action adventure, Bastille Day, Miles Davis biopic, Miles Ahead, and Natalie Portman western, Jane Got A Gun on the same release weekend in the UK, so it’s got as much a chance of success as any.
Story
The plot tells the story of stuck-in-a-rut television journalist, Kim Baker, as she decides to make a significant and dangerous career change to become a war correspondent. The assignment is in Afghanistan in the thick of major US operations in the region and while her lack of experience starts out as a major hurdle it goes on to get her a name as she tries to get an honest take on the conflict.
Out in the field she meets Tanya, a fellow journalist and seasoned veteran correspondent in the Afghan conflict, as well as photographer Iain and the three set about covering the carnage around then. Set against Kim is the US Marines top brass who see her as an inexperienced nuisance and general danger, so things are stacked against her right from the beginning, but the longer she stays the more she learns about the country, it’s people and the war that scorched it for so many years.
Cast
With Fey in the lead role as Kim, she is supported by Margot Robbie (Suicide Squad), who plays her Aussie correspondent friend Tanya, and Martin Freeman (Captain America: Civil War) as brazen photographer Iain. They’re also joined by Billy Bob Thornton (Finding Dory) as cantankerous Marine commander, General Hollaneck, along with Alfred Molina (Monsters University) as a prominent Afghan official that befriends Kim.
The Whiskey Tango Foxtrot cast also includes Josh Charles (Freeheld), Sheila Vand (Argo), Nicholas Braun (Red State) and Steve Peacocke.
Production
The film is a directorial duet with Glenn Ficarra (Focus) taking up one butt cheek on the big person’s chair and John Requa taking up the other, as they’ve done before for Focus, Crazy, Stupid Love and I Love You Phillip Morris. It was written by Robert Carlock (Thirty Rock) and produced by Tina Fey, Ian Bryce and Lorne Michaels.
First impressions
We’re not 100% sold on the prospect of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, despite being particularly enamoured by a lot of the cast members and having a fair amount of admiration for the director duo for their work on Focus. The trailer doesn’t really do very much to win you over and while this is possibly because they’ve elected to save the best bits for the film release itself, it could also indicate more of a negative potential for the film.
However, reviews have been on the positive side following its US release date earlier in 2016, so maybe it’s one to consider that that it has arrived in he UK, during a relatively quiet weekend in April.
