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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Mini-review

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Tina Fey

Tina Fey plays it somewhat serious in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

C+Imagine that Liz Lemon, Tina Fey‘s character in the TV comedy series 30 Rock, had been sent to Afghanistan a decade ago to cover the war there. The results would probably look like Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, a movie that has a number of entertaining scenes but never quite coalesces as a dramatic whole.

Fey plays Kim Baker, a cable news journalist who tries to jumpstart a stalled career by taking an assignment in Afghanistan. She soon grows to love the mix of danger, sex, and partying that forms the lifestyle of foreign journalists. Eventually, she becomes more serious about a news photographer (Martin Freeman), a relationship that may end when her assignment eventually does.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is based on a memoir by Chicago Tribune journalist Kim Barker about her own experiences in Afghanistan. The film consists primarily of various anecdotal scenes featuring Kim with a variety of colorful characters, including an experienced Australian journalist (Margot Robbie) who shows her the ropes, a Marine general (Billy Bob Thornton) with a dim view of journalists in general, and a lecherous local politician (Alfred Molina). Many of these scenes, taken directly from the book, work quite well, especially the relationship between Kim and the general, who grudgingly comes to accept her. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot also paints a bizarre but fascinating picture of journalists partying like there’s no tomorrow in buildings that are oases of booze, rock music, and sex in the midst of a highly dangerous war zone lying just outside the exit door. Despite this often compelling imagery and a solid dramatic performance by Fey, however, Kim never feels like a real character. Instead, she’s a plot device whose character development is shown by montages of her partying in night clubs as the months go by. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot aims for emotional depth in a closing stateside encounter between Kim and a now crippled soldier she interviewed in Afghanistan, but the scene feels curiously flat. As a black comic depiction of the outlandish realities of modern warfare, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot succeeds, but as the story of an actual journalist, it ultimately misses the target. 
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The Big Short: Mini-review

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Christian Bale

Christian Bale again headlines the cast of an Oscar contender

B+Adam McKay, the creator of such intellectual classics as Anchorman and Talladega Nights, might be the last person you’d expect to write and direct the definitive film about the biggest financial disaster in U.S. history since the Great Depression. But his The Big Short is exactly that. What’s more, McKay brings his comic touch to this most sobering of subject matter without losing sight of the larger tragedy he’s depicting.

In The Big Short, McKay looks at the financial crisis through the eyes of a handful of savvy investors who realized that the housing market was about to collapse and who then made millions while major banks and brokerage houses went broke all around them. These investors include hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale), the first to realize that many subprime mortgages were likely to fail, and Mark Baum (Steve Carell), who learns about the looming crisis from Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), a trader at one of the banks most heavily invested in subprime mortgages.  

The Big Short is based on a non-fiction book by Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, but McKay takes considerable liberties in making the film’s often complex financial concepts more accessible to viewers. Ryan Gosling frequently breaks character as Vennett to address the audience directly, and the movie includes colorful demonstrations (such as the one depicted in the scene below), including some explanations of various financial instruments offered by the likes of Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez. This breezy narrative tone extends to the montage-filled depictions of greed and excess that fueled the housing bubble. Steve Carell delivers the film’s best performance as the closest thing Big Short has to an audience surrogate. Mark Baum (based on real life hedge-fund manager Steve Eisman) is skeptical at first that the market is about to collapse and later is torn by the realization that wealth for him represents possible ruin for the country’s economy. The tone of the movie makes a serious look at the moral and ethical issues involved in the crisis problematic, but Big Short makes it clear that the power wielded by the major financial institutions not only led to the crisis but made it worse through their attempts to perpetuate the housing bubble. The Big Short goes a long way towards presenting the worst financial disaster in decades in terms that general audiences will understand and, hopefully, learn from.
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Focus: Mini-Review

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Will Smith

Will Smith looking far more casual than he does in Focus

B-The art of the con, like stage magic, is based on misdirection. As long as the con artist can keep the mark’s attention focused on the right thing, the scam can work. Similarly, as long as the movie Focus dazzles viewers with its slick style and the artistry of its grifters, the film works.

No one is slicker than Nicky Spurgeon (Will Smith), the leader of a team of con artists and pickpockets in Focus who fleece unsuspecting tourists at events like the Super Bowl. He takes newcomer Jess (Margot Robbie) under his wing—and, soon, into his bed—as he shows her how his scams work. Nicky’s schemes run into some complications when he butts heads with a big-time gambler at the game itself, and he bids farewell to Jess soon after. Three years later, Nicky runs into Jess again when he’s trying to pull off an even bigger con involving competing auto racing teams. One team owner’s head of security (Gerald McRaney) is already suspicious of him, and Nicky’s growing feelings for Jess may distract him just enough to get him in trouble.

For the first half of Focus, writer/directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa dazzle viewers with a rapidly edited, fast paced look at the artistry of Nicky’s team. The Super Bowl job isn’t the type of long con fans of David Mamet or movies like The Sting have come to expect. Instead, NIcky’s crew pulls off dozens of small-scale scams and thefts executed at a dizzying pace. When the pace slows down in the second half, we’re left with a more conventional drama about a veteran crook pondering going legit. Frankly, although Margot Robbie (in a star making turn) is alluring enough to make any man want to go legit, this type of romance has been done better many times before. Further, the attempted big con just isn’t that interesting. Focus keeps the audience’s focus for most of the movie, but, at the end, its weaknesses as a drama and romance are hard to overlook. 
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