Considering my longstanding affection for Tina Fey and the fact that I am a lady journalist who once dreamed of being a foreign correspondent, it would be deeply silly to pretend to be the stony-browed face of impartial judgment when it comes to Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, starring Fey (she also produced!) as a war correspondent in Afghanistan. I am clearly its focus group; pleased to meet you.
Henceforth referred to by its initials, WTF is based on The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the memoir from real-life war correspondent Kim Barker. In what I hope is a deviation from Barker’s story, movie-Kim is sent to Afghanistan when her network needs embed volunteers, and seeks out the childless and unmarried first. Behind enemy lines, she finds—after some initial obligatory bumbling around—that she is actually really fucking good at filming explosions and getting good quotes…