Filmology Rating: 1.83 out of 4

 

In 2002, cable news journalist Kim Barker (Tina Fey) decides that it is time to shake up her normal dull routine by taking an assignment in Kabul, Afghanistan. Away from her previously comfortable American lifestyle, Barker soon finds herself in the middle of a war zone. At first she thinks that she can’t do this and thinks about leaving, but soon finds that she actually enjoys reporting dangerous stories and can’t get enough of it. 

Alright, so with an all-star cast of Tina Fey, Martin Freeman, Margot Robbie, Billy Bob Thornton, and Alfred Molina, you’d think that this would be a powerhouse movie right? Well not exactly…. WTF (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot) really fell flat for me. I was never really truly engaged with this movie and was looking at my watch to see how much longer I had to sit through this movie. Let me start with the good in this movie. Probably the best part of this movie was Martin Freeman. I thought that he gave the best performance in the movie by far and he was fun to watch. He and Tina Fey have a romance that seemed very believable given the circumstances of their surroundings. However, this little romance isn’t nearly enough to make the movie good. 

Was this a comedy? Is it a romance movie? Could it even be a drama/war movie? Your guess is as good as mine. WTF doesn’t hit any of these categories hard enough to really have any definition as to what WTF is all about. It is somewhere out there in nomads land just wandering about looking for some clarity and finding none. I wasn’t truly sold on any of the genres it tried to portray. Not nearly funny enough to be a comedy, not dramatic enough to grab you emotionally, action was scattered about in short bursts, and honestly nothing to make WTF stand out. Tina Fey has a natural comedic vibe to her and in some parts of the movie, Tina along with some others had a joke here and there but nothing that will make you truly laugh. At times, her character lacks definition. Her decision to accept this job and go to Afghanistan seems so rushed and hurried that it never builds a connection between her and the audience. Then the rest of the movie is trying to play catchup and we really never quite reach her. 

Another thing that I didn’t like was the editing style in WTF. It constant jumps from scene to scene and it got really annoying. A scene would start to build and then all of a sudden, the scene is over and it’s on to the next one. Just when you think that you could maybe start to build that connection to a character or dive into a scene, it was gone before you could connect. After the short time this movie is in theaters, it will be forgotten. There is nothing memorable about this movie and nothing worthwhile to remember. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a hard pass for me.

Rating: Let It Burn 

-Nick