Whiskey
Tango Foxtrot
Directors:
Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Writer:
Robert Carlock
Starring:
Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Alfred Molina, Billy Bob
Thornton
Rating:
Four stars out of five
Available
in theaters now
Gallows
humor is both a wonderful and terrible thing. It is a necessary thing
for those participating in it, but it can have a boomerang effect on
outsiders who view it. If those who have not experienced such
horrors, nor the need to dissociate themselves from such horrors, see
something that depicts such humor, they can feel a tug inside
themselves saying, “This is wrong. Don't do that.” But for the
people stuck in the thick of things, it's totally normal. They can
still acknowledge the gravity of their situation, but they need the
release.
Such
is the case for Whiskey Tango Foxtrot's Tina Fey, as Kim Baker
– a fictionalized version of real-life journalist Kim Barker –
reporting on camera during a montage of her getting her bearings as a
war correspondent in the years when the war in Afghanistan started to
really go south for Americans. She looks down for a second beside a
bombed-out pile of rubble and curses, startled. She says they have to
start again because, as the shoulder-mounted TV camera quickly pans
to the ground, there is a severed hand greeting Kim.
This
moment is played for laughs, but they are nervous laughs.
Co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa have built a reputation for
uncomfortable humor across their career, which began in earnest with
penning the screenplay for the 2003 Terry Zwigoff-directed Bad
Santa. Since moving into the directors' chairs, the two have
softened a touch, getting a little less acerbic – but still plenty
irreverent – with the likes of I Love You Phillip Morris and
last year's breezy and entertaining con artist picture, Focus.
With Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, they continue to play within
that sweet spot of dark and witty humor, occasional uplift, and
clear-eyed realism about some of humanity's worst tendencies. That
they are able to do so with an unobtrusive but still stylish camera
is gravy.
The
chief virtue of the movie is its ability to never lose the script. It
knows it is a comedy about a war reporter in the middle of what
became a forgotten war. That is inherently a sad, frightening, and
ultimately angering subject. But Ficarra, Requa, and screenwriter
Robert Carlock – who is Tina Fey's writing partner on television
projects like 30
Rock –
make sure nearly every moment is a blend of pathos and righteousness,
as well as packed with jokes. There is a gradual sense of
understanding for each character who has been in a war zone for years
that this is far from normal or healthy behavior. Perhaps the pace of
the jokes diminishes a bit during this slide to drama, but they never
stop entirely.
Whiskey
Tango Foxtrot is
not always deft in how it unspools itself. It can get a little on the
nose in making its themes explicit. There are conversations Kim has
with colleagues – those who become friends, family, and more –
about their place in the world and the war. Kim's guide to the
region, Fahim (Christopher Abbott), is a former doctor who happens to
have a background in treating those with opioid addictions. In one
scene, they discuss the addiction that builds inside people around
danger for extended periods of time. Luckily the writer and directors
keep these two characters cognizant of what is happening in the scene
enough to get a little meta – they say how they are dancing around
the heart of their argument – but the script makes it a tad less
nimble than the rest of the picture bears out.
Luckily
it has performers of such depth working in its favor. Tina Fey is not
just another spin on her Liz Lemon character from 30
Rock. She
is a person who is stuck in a career she hates, looking for a way
out, no matter what it may bring, so she signs up for the most
dangerous possible assignment a journalist can take. Her humor and
occasional haplessness generate much of the film's humor – she is
not the coolest customer when it comes to understanding rules and
regulations. Her determination toward excellence – grabbing a
camera and jumping into the path of bullets on her first ride-along
with Marines so she can get the best shot – and the deepening
realization in her eyes as the years drag on, shot in extreme closeup
by the directors, reveal far more than her status as a modern comedy
titan would suggest.
Margot
Robbie, as Kim's Australian counterpart and closest friend in the war
zone, plays things a shade darker as she lets her ego and career
latter climbing put her into increasingly unsafe situations – after
two straight creatively successful films with the directors, it would
be great to see Robbie become their lucky charm. Martin Freeman, as a
snotty Scottish photographer who doesn't always have the best way
with other people, lets himself become vulnerable throughout the
movie, revealing the charm and decency that has made him such a good
romantic lead in his career. And Alfred Molina gets the showiest role
as a flamboyant doofus of an Afghan bureaucrat always looking for
favors, but his part is nevertheless sly on the margins and used to
make a point about ignoring naked self-interest on occasion to do
something to protect other people.
Whiskey
Tango Foxtrot is
a movie for adults who don't like to be pandered to. It charms and it
laughs irreverently in the face of danger, but it takes its situation
seriously and its audience just as seriously. Its mixture of humor,
drama, action, and fright are handled as a single, humbling tone. It
is humanistic in showing how every moment can have multiple shades
and emotions to it. Not every scene is a success, but most of them
are. Like the rest of Ficarra and Requa's films, it is the type of
thing mass entertainment needs more of.
No comments:
Post a Comment