Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Glen Ficarra and John Requa/Starring: Tina Fey, Billy Bob Thornton, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Alfred Molina, Christopher Abbott and Cherry Jones

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot; militarized code for WTF, is also the new film by directors Glen Ficarra and John Requa, which is based on journalist Kim Barker's The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I have to admit that I wasn't eager to see the film. Tina Fey, who plays Ms. Barker, has proven to be less funny in her big screen forays than her television ventures. The other strike against this movie is its subject matter. I have to say I've had my fill with films about the Afghan War and don't relish more, though I had just seen Danish director Tobias Lindholm's excellent Afghan War drama A War only days before. Ficarra and Requa's film is a comedy/drama hybrid, though it skews more to the latter as the story unfolds. WTF isn't much of a drama and I can't remember laughing or even smiling during the film's comedic moments. Though a story of a journalist covering a war has comedic potential, Ficarra and Requa's can't coax anything funny from the material. I haven't read Kim Barker's book, so I can't comment on its qualities or lack thereof but I hope the film is an aberration. The film doesn't seem to be about anything more than self-absorbed, privileged, white, western journalists and their silly romantic lives and careers rather than the bloody conflict itself. Little in the film is taken seriously; everyone seems buffoonish though nothing is very funny and no one is very amusing.

Barker is deployed to Afghanistan by her paper after her bosses decide sending single journalists is preferable to sending those with spouses and kids. The fact that Barker has a serious boyfriend doesn't factor into their decision. We know from the outset that her time in Afghanistan will place a terrific strain on her relationship.
With her mind full of anxieties about her boyfriend and the task ahead, she arrives in Kabul and is met by her driver and interpreter; Fahim (Christopher Abbott). She is driven to the mostly-male media compound; a lively hive of journalists seeking stories, danger, after-hours drinking and sexual decompression. Upon meeting an Australian peer named Tanya (Margot Robbie), Barker is immediately asked if her security team is available for sex, which serves as a kind of initiation into the fast and loose culture that prevails on the premises. In explaining the advantages of being outnumbered by men, Tanya tells Barker a woman who isn't a catch back home becomes a sought-after prize in female-deficient Afghanistan. Committed to her boyfriend, Barker finds fending off aggressive advances by male colleagues and Afghan men alike to be a daily struggle.

As the story unfolds, we meet other characters who play a part in Barker's experiences. She becomes acquainted with Iain MacKelpie (Martin Freeman); a Scottish Lothario who is at odds with Kim's bodyguard Nic (Stephen Peacocke, who resembles a buff Hugh Grant); General Hollanek (Billy Bob Thornton), who allows her to tag along with his soldier's operations, and Ali Massoud Sadiq (Alfred Molina); an Afghan public official who Barker must charm to gain access to key interviewees and inaccessible places. But she finds she must also resist his advances, which are persistent and frequent.
The theme of a woman at the mercy and admiration of men is supposed to make Barker empathetic to the Afghan women, who endure the same.

We see some of Barker's reporting acumen while she rides along with Hollanek's units. During a road-side ambush, she quickly grabs her camera and works her way toward the front line of the firefight, which earns her the General's admiration. Later, after the General's unit becomes frustrated with what they believe is a Taliban mission to keep a village well from becoming operational, Barker encounters a group of women who take her aside to inform her of their culpability in the well's destruction. As Barker explains to the General shortly thereafter, the well denies the women the pleasure of gathering at the river for conversation and gossip. Subsequently, the general leaves the well in a rubble-strewn state of disrepair. The scene is supposed to highlight how the military is often ill-trained to deal with many aspects of foreign cultures, particularly the needs of women; which Barker is able to gain insight to in her unique role as a female reporter.

But aside from that interesting scene, the movie seems to focus almost entirely on who is sleeping with whom and who is trying to sleep with Tanya and Barker. Scenes of dancing, drinking, and partying journalists become almost a default visual.

But other issues eventually come to the forefront. Time away from her boyfriend leads to an incident where Barker catches him with another woman while on Skype, which seems inevitable. Rendered single, Barker becomes the romantic target of MacKelpie; the unlikeliest of seducers. As time passes, the two slowly become an item until MacKelpie invites her to return to Scotland with him, which she begins to consider.

Barker learns from her superiors at her paper that the war is rapidly losing its value as something news-worthy, which forces her to search for more compelling stories and interviews. The competition to find a juicy scoop becomes fierce, as Barker becomes the victim of Tanya's story-grabbing machinations. Furious, she returns home to face her boss; who, to her surprise, isn't a man but a woman named Geri Taub (Cherry Jones).

Having become accustomed to her bizarre life in Afghanistan, which she calls "the new normal," Barker grows weary of the scene, which leads to sweeping changes in her career and romantic life.

One might think the story would be irresistibly entertaining, but even though its source material is drawn from true-life accounts, there is nevertheless something tired and overly familiar about the story and characters. It isn't that Tina Fey is miscast or her acting skills aren't up to the challenge. What was surprising about Fey's performance wasn't its comedic aspects but the fact that she has dramatic aptitude. I can hardly fault her for the film's flaws. Billy Bob Thornton, though only onscreen occasionally, proved to be a fun and quirky presence and one of the film's best features.

So what is wrong with the film? It isn't funny, for one. It isn't an affective drama either. The Afghan world is purports to be partially about doesn't seem like a real place but something half-imagined and half-realized. No one in the film seems to give a damn about the country or people, who are engaged in a war that won't end. I didn't really want to know that much about Barker, whose life is supposed to be dramatically altered by her experiences though we don't see any evidence of such. Apart from feeling guilt about a soldier whose maiming she feels responsible for, nothing about her time in Afghanistan seems to matter much. All that does seem to matter is her career.

In reading the New York Times Arts section this morning, I noticed that the film fared badly at the box office, while the animated family feature Zootopia cleaned up. I don't normally pay attention to box office tallies but it seemed fitting that the film should lose out to a kid's flick. I happened to see Zootopia with my daughter over the weekend and found it to be a more pleasurable experience. Yes, I know they are two very different kinds of movies but being that I always prefer adult films to anything animated should tell you something about my estimation of the film. Somehow the animated characters seemed less cartoonish.

Focus

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Glen Ficarra and John Requa/Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Rodrigo Santoro and Gerald McRaney

I've never been a fan of Will Smith, so I was less than enthusiastic about seeing Focus, directors Glen Ficarra (I Love You Phillip Morris) and John Requa's new film that is mainly about the world of cons but is as much about the sex appeal of its two leads. The trailer didn't exactly wow movie-goers and I must say it left me feeling impatient and bored. But if Focus isn't particularly riveting cinema, it's hardly disposable. It has its redemptive attributes and though it isn't difficult to see the story's sleight of hand and anticipate its direction, it still manages to have fun getting to its destination and for once, I didn't recoil from Smith's presence onscreen.

With every film about cons, we're asked as an audience to determine who is conning who and how much of what we see is some sort of elaborate put-on. Focus asks us to do more of the same but like every film of its ilk, the visual landscape must be stocked with charming and attractive confidence men and women. Will Smith and Margot Robbie fill the bill nicely.

Smith plays Nicky, a professional con man with a team that traffics in every sort rip-off scheme, big and small; from pick-pocketing to ATM scams to identity and credit card theft. Like all cons, they aren't hampered by crises of conscience about what they do.

Nicky's team targets major sporting events where crowds are sure to gather, like the Super Bowl and college bowl games.

When we first see Nicky, he is appraising the sexy Jess (Margot Robbie) in a hotel bar. After conversation leads to a bedroom tryst, Nicky finds that he is the target of a would-be scam when a man purporting to be Jess' husband bursts into the room with a gun. When the gunman fails to frighten Nicky, the con is laid bare. Nicky, further wounding the small-time con's wounded egos, offers them pointers on how to properly carry out the con they failed to perpetrate.

Not long after, Jess approaches Nicky and learns of his professional life as a con. Taking Jess under his wing, he introduces her to his team and even shows her his temporary New Orleans headquarters, where merchandise, money and valuables, pilfered from the unsuspecting, rest.

A series of scenes follows where Jess participates in elaborate pickpocketing and credit card thefts which are a little too neat and flawlessly executed.

A romance blossoms between the two cons, in spite of Nicky's reluctance to bring Jess into the fold.

After Nicky informs his team of their successful take, which exceeds one million dollars, he invites Jess to the Super Bowl in New Orleans; giving her a taste of the lush life his business brings. Intoxicated by the luxury seats Nicky has secured, the two casually watch the game and the crowd. The two begin casually making bets on fan tendencies and when a wealthy Asian man sitting nearby asks to join the betting, the monetary stakes begin to climb. At this point, we know Nicky has had a troubled gambling past, which adds some tension to the scene. When Jess tries to stop Nicky from making making larger bets, he is egged on by the Asian man's taunts. As he continues to lose the double or nothing bets, the prize grows to one million, which causes Jess more than just a little anxiety. As Nicky makes an enormous, last stand bet, we discover a highly elaborate con in play. How it plays out reveals something about the degree to which Nicky will pursue an intricately crafted con. It also says something about how the film virulently petitions the audience to overlook logic and plausibility. Though it is an exciting sequence, it is also quite improbable. Why would Nicky and the Asian gambler be carrying bags of cash on them at the Super Bowl? Wouldn't bags arouse security's suspicion? And what about the con itself? Would Nicky and his crew have such superhuman faith in a con involving subliminal messages; whose success is hardly guaranteed? And would they be willing to risk losing a million dollars to earn more? It is worth mentioning that the convoluted plan involves one of Nicky's crew standing on the sidelines in a uniform, which seems laughably absurd. But somehow we're coaxed along and if the sequence seems too fantastic to swallow, it also manages to be entertaining.

Nicky, feeling some kind of guilt for dragging Jess into his world, decides to part company with her. Crestfallen, he leaves her with a substantial chunk of cash before saying goodbye.

The story picks up three years later as we find Nicky in Argentina. He is now a part of a Formula One Racing pit crew. Why he would end up in such an unlikely place is slowly teased out in the plot. We learn he is part of a con that involves selling a highly coveted but bogus device that is supposed to give driver's an edge over their competition. Nicky is in the employ of a wealthy man named Garriga (Rodrigo Santoro); an avid race fan who hopes to con a competitor into spending big dollars on the useless copy of his device. The con, in part, involves Nicky staging a fight with Garriga's pit crew boss at a party he is throwing; a deception that is supposed to draw the attention of Garriga's target. But after Nicky arrives for the party, he is shocked to see Jess romancing Garriga, which arouses his jealous ire. Nicky manages to re-kindle the relationship with the resistant Jess. Not long after, Nicky double crosses Garriga by selling his device to all the opposing racing teams. As Nicky and Jess try to escape, they are captured by one of Garriga's henchmen. Tied up, the two await execution in a warehouse. Of course we learn that Nicky's rekindling of the romance was part of a larger deception conceived to steal a password for Garriga's encrypted computer files, which contains information about his wonder device. But it also becomes known that Jess herself was working Garriga and we're meant to be titillated by the multiple double crossings that are an imperative in all con films.

Why Argentina and Formula One racing? I suppose filmmakers wanted an exotic locale for the second half of the film but why racing? Why would that appeal to a con man? It doesn't make sense but I guess the audience isn't meant to quibble about where a con finds his or her marks.

In spite of the plot hokum, the movie still held me captive. Part of the film's appeal is the chemistry between Smith and Robbie. Inter-racial romances are rare in Hollywood films so the relationship was something different and refreshing.

I can't say the character of Nicky challenged Smith much. That he be suave and cool were the lone demands of his performance though a back-story dealing with his grifter father was an attempt at depth. Jess' wardrobe and Robbie's acting seem to be on loan from her character in The Wolf of Wall Street. It's uncanny how few differences separate the two characters. Robbie even sounds like her character in Scorcese's film.

If you look too closely, nothing in Focus makes much sense and if it had a believable moment, then it probably escaped my notice. But in spite of impossible odds, I enjoyed the movie anyway. It doesn't take itself too seriously and it knows not to sell its whopper of a plot too hard. The romanticized life of a grifter: big money, beautiful women and the potential for danger is the draw here, not air-tight, unassailable, plot-twisting storytelling. Nevertheless, directors Ficarra and Requa know how to keep their story one-step from the abyss of the ludicrous.

Focus is fun. It is a last-weekend-in-February diversion before the more-stimulating March fare arrives. It is adequate for now but it may wither in the early morning light of March 1st. We'll see.