Wow. If I wasn't already a fan of Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey, I sure am now. The same barbed wit is evident throughout Whiskey, Tengo Foxtrot (military acronym for What the F***),but this isn't a skit. Tina Fey portrays a nuanced character, a low level employee of a network news department who makes an impulsive career move and ends up as a war correspondent in Afghanistan. Doesn't sound entertaining? It probably wouldn't be without the amazing touch Fey puts on her character. While it's not a war movie, it certainly captures the hopelessness of a culture doomed to perpetual war in the arm pit of the world. Afghanistan ultimately gets dismissed as a place undeserving of American military support, or even interest. The people shoot each other and blow each other up in conflict over interpretations of their medieval religion, and the movie correctly concludes "who cares"? But the Americans and individual Afghanis touch each others lives in ways that transcend cynicism. Fey and her Saturday Night Live co-producer Lorne Michaels find humor and humanity in ways that make you root for all the characters. The movie has no dull moments, and the pacing keeps you in your seat. Like Afghanistan itself, there were potential landmines of preachiness, boring politics and hopelessness...and WTF avoids them all. There are subtle, brilliant, and stereotype breaking supporting roles by Billy Bob Thornton, Alfred Molina, (Spiderman 2),Margot Robbie (Wolf of Wall Street) and Martin Freeman (whose correspondent character is as far from Bilbo Baggins as Kabul is from New York.) Three cheers for Tina Fey, who manages to give us entertainment and a smile while showing us how lucky we are to be Americans. WTF could have been boring and preachy, and instead gives us a feel good movie from the most unlikely place on earth.

It's 2003. Anybody good has been sent over to Iraq. The news channel is looking for unmarried childless people to cover the forgotten Afghan war. Kim Baker (Tina Fey) decides to get out from behind the computer screen to go in front of the camera. She's a fish out of water. She tries long distance dating with boyfriend Chris. Fahim is her local fixer and Nic is security. Fellow reporter Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie) is one of the few western women and she claims that Kim is Kabul Cute. Iain MacKelpie (Martin Freeman) is a charming war photographer. Ali Massoud Sadiq (Alfred Molina) is a rising Afghan politician. Kim gets embedded with General Hollanek (Billy Bob Thornton)'s marines.

This starts out as Liz Lemon in Kabul. The comedy is a bit too broad. Tina Fey can't help giving off that vibe but she doesn't have to be a bumbling idiot. Letting the money blow away is far too slapstick. She needs to see those moments as ill-fitting and eliminate them with a vengeance. The joke about her looking like a pretty boy is also too jokey. Martin Freeman and Alfred Molina are pushing the movie too much on the lighter side. Freeman is lighter simply by his nature and Molina's character should be a little scary. I have no objection with Liz Lemon in Kabul but she needs to be calibrated to the darker end. The movie actually achieves the right tone in the end. With a less jokey start, this would have been a great new version of Good Morning, Vietnam.

My local Cineplex had twelve movies to pick from. If you take the superheroes and the sci fi stuff out, and one more Greek wedding, this was the only movie that remotely interested me. I'm glad I went. While some of it was a little contrived, I think it had that aura of incredible threat that well made movies of this type have. I thought Tina Fey was very good, as were Martin Freeman (unsung generally) and Billy Bob Thornton. I don't know if the partying and drug use are as rampant as presented (maybe they are),but the best parts of this picture are the scenes where we wonder what's around the next corner. One of the most frightening scenes is when Fey's character is inadvertently dropped off at the wrong house. Suddenly, she knows fear. She is defenseless, just for a few moments. She does a nice job of showing that trip into the adrenaline rush that these people have to have. Those of us who think we are sane would probably say, "Why would someone not in the military want to go to a place like this?" We see them every night on the news, many of them women. I learned a lesson about open-mindedness.