Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT (Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, 2015)

With its title conveyed in the NATO phonetic alphabet, WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT hints at the main character’s heedlessness in becoming a war correspondent and astonishment at what she finds to be normal in that environment. Kim Baker (Tina Fey) is tired of spinning her wheels writing lightweight scripts at a cable news channel, so when her employer seeks on-camera talent to cover the war in Afghanistan, she grabs the opportunity even though she’s not prepared for the inherent hardships and danger. She has a boyfriend who is often traveling but no kids, which frees her to accept the initial six-month assignment.

Beginning in 2003 Kim sets up her base in Kabul in a place akin to a ramshackle hostel for international journalists. Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie) gives her a crash course in the dynamics of the place, particularly in regard to her high desirability in a spot with few western women and many men. Scottish photojournalist Iain MacKelpie (Martin Freeman) becomes a friend who would like to get more familiar with Kim. Interpreter Fahim Ahmadzai (Christopher Abbott) tries to be protective of her even as she takes unadvised risks. Kim gets hooked on the thrill of reporting from a war zone while the public back home increasingly is losing interest.

In WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT Fey stays largely true to the persona she’s developed in films and TV shows but adapts it for a setting more serious than audiences are used to seeing her in. Once again she’s a clever, funny, fortysomething single woman with an unfulfilling personal and professional life, but in this situation there’s little time to spend fretting about her disappointments. Kim’s intelligence and sharp wit function as shields, if not weapons, in a hostile land. She is quick with withering remarks and crude rejoinders, in part because it’s what survival in the male-dominated culture demands, yet there’s a limit to how much her verbal assertiveness can protect her. Fey is good at showing how Kim mounts her defenses while remaining aware of her vulnerability. Her funny performance demonstrates that her character can drink and swear like one of the boys but still faces disadvantages because of her gender.

Kim rediscovers herself during her time in Afghanistan, but WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, based on Kim Barker’s book about her experiences, resists being EAT PRAY LOVE goes to war. The film is Kim’s story of personal growth, but it also depicts the lack of change where she’s reporting from. Robert Carlock’s screenplay observes the absurdity and sadness in war-torn Afghanistan. It’s funny that Kim doesn’t recognize the scam of a boy crying over the broken eggs he was going to sell on the street and heartrending to realize that he’s out there doing it out of necessity. There’s humor in a local mistaking an African-American soldier’s presence as meaning that the Russians are now black, yet it points out the decades-long, unresolved conflict in the region.

Directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa maintain the tricky harmony of laughing at the strangeness of a war zone without demeaning those who endure bombings, searches, and gun battles. Alfred Molina’s portrayal of an upper Afghan official who drops thinly veiled come-ons to Kim is the one out-of-tune exception to WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT’s tonal balance. Molina’s performance contains menace as he implies receiving sex for secrets, but the threatening aspect of him is overshadowed by his clownish behavior. Otherwise WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT stays clear-eyed while taking an askew view inside the bubble of war.

Grade: B

Focus

FOCUS (Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, 2015)

In FOCUS seasoned con artist Nicky (Will Smith) knows the tricks of the trade so well that he can easily spot the hustle Jess (Margot Robbie) and her partner try to pull on him in a Manhattan restaurant. Seeing an opportunity to better herself, Jess follows Nicky to New Orleans, where she works to convince him to let her join his den of thieves. After capably proving her skills in a packed French Quarter, Nicky takes her on as an intern with his thirty-person team stealing money, valuables, and identities during Super Bowl week there.

The pleasure of a film about con artists resides in how smoothly it can fool you when you’re already on guard for some narrative chicanery. FOCUS co-writer/directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa are adept in keeping attention on the scams at hand so that the bigger design isn’t glimpsed or considered. They do a slick job of tying everything together in a satisfying way without spoiling the surprises and retroactively correcting some third act issues.

Ficarra and Requa are also quite clever in how they use The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” as a cue on the soundtrack. When it first pops up, it seems like a lazy selection in terms of the classic rock song’s overuse and direct comment on the action at hand. A little later on, though, the employment of it is shown as being crucial to the scene in a way that’s essentially invisible to the audience the first time. Using such details in ornamental and pivotal ways provides regular gratification in this fizzy film.

As long as Nicky is grifting, Smith channels the suave movie stars of yesteryear. He’s also a good verbal sparrer with Robbie, but the romance and heat that is supposed to exist between Nicky and Jess isn’t especially convincing. Smith displays some of the Cary Grant comedic lightness called for in the part, but he seems too invested in work to get distracted by Robbie’s harder edged Grace Kelly. Robbie gives the more varied performance as she adapts to the situations. It’s a potentially star-making turn in a film that hasn’t enjoyed the kind of success to push her to that level.

Grade: B