Whisky Tango Foxtrot

Afghanistan unsurprisingly has been 'done' a fair bit on screen over the decade or more, but this movie doesn't do the big badda boom badge of honour action, but focuses on the lives, interactions, and mindsets of war correspondents and the people around them, within a context of light drama with (for me at least) laugh out loud moments, and does it rather well, despite the director team of  Glen Ficarra and John Requa having previously given us the soul numbing ‘Bad Grandpa’ There is a sensitive balance in tension between the seriousness and ridiculousness of reporting on armed conflict without it turning into Boo Ra!  or ‘War Inc’ pastiche, and it has something serious to say about major news services treating conflicts as fashionable commodity. It also shows, and I know ‘cos I’ve met a couple, what an utterly bonkers lot conflict journo’s are.

The storyline? Well jaundiced copy editor chucks herself into the void to escape the walls closing in, wonders briefly what the fuck she’s done, and then chases the big story. Big story nailed, she hangs in and racks up some scare miles until eventually realizing that no one in the big comfy news media offices gives a flying Taliban anymore unless it’s a biiii………iiiiiiiiiiig story. Throw in a bit of romance, some mad soldiery, droolly politicians, and warlordiness… and that’s your Kofta’s served.
Tina Fey? Well I've seen her in a few light comedies that have not exactly set my synapses on fire, but .with her particular brand of wide eyed neurosis she carries the lead in this one well enough. Margo Robbie is solid. Billy Bob Thornton continues his 'second wind' as a serious actor and gives superb sarky military in this one, and

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Martin Freeman surprises in a relatively un-type loose limbed performance, even if his Scots accent was a bit…erm…odd. The stand out for me though is Christopher Abbott (who I must confess I know little about) as Afghan guide/security man Fahim, in a remarkably nuanced performance. An actor to watch out for I reckon. The only casting blip is the choice of Alfred Molina as an Afghan minister. Seen him do some fine work previously but so miscast here it almost seems he is in a different movie to everyone else.
Where this movie really wins out is scripting and pace. There is no fat here, and I found myself engaged throughout. All in all maybe not a must see, but if you do come across it? It’s worth a punt 

Eagle Eye

Once I'd got over the disappointment of realising Shia Leboeuf isn't playing an Action Man (G.I. Joe to you Americans) with gripping hands, posable limbs and swivel-eyes, I settled down to watch him and Michelle Moynehoyneything being manipulated by a voice on the phone to do all sorts of crazy shit.

Shia is Jerry whose identical twin brother has just died in a road accident. Michelle is Rachel, who isn't a twin. But she's a mother. A combination of threats to their loved ones and spooky coincidences that just can't be coincidences persuades them to follow their increasingly dangerous instructions and we begin to piece together the possibility that it all has something to do with a new form of sonically activated high yield crystal explosive.

Meanwhile, Rosario Dawson is investigating the death of Jerry's brother for the Air Force and Billy Bob Thornton is investigating the trail of carnage left in the wake of the now fugitive Jerry and Rachel. Billy is a police officer. With teeth that don't look like his own. Does Billy always have weird teeth? It's very distracting. But he won't be distracted by his own teeth or by the seemingly random havoc being wreaked upon Illinois and then Washington. That's DC. Where the big stuff happens. The big Presidential, Capitol Hill stuff.

Halfway through the action we discover that the female voice down the line, the person who has controlled traffic signals, electronic billboards, sprinkler systems and all manner of other malarkey, isn't a person at all: she's software. A vasty system of Pentagon software, codenamed Eagle Eye, which is programmed to predict terrorist threat levels and suggest optimum responses. Only she's a bit sentient and a lot mental.

A prior botched attempt to take out a Middle Eastern terrorist sponsor/organiser when the Eagle Eye predictions were only fifty percent certain, has somewhat miffed the sentient software. The Prez himself had overruled Michael Chiklis who was on the insane computer's side in wanting to abort the drone strike. Chiklis didn't know she was sentient or insane, just that his own instinct was that a fifty percent chance of a successful outcome wasn't an acceptable risk. He has no idea this means the software now views him as superior presidential material and intends to activate a protocol allowing her to eliminate the current POTUS, the Veep and the entire chain of command around them.

Which is why she needs Jerry. His brother worked on the Eagle Eye project and had vocally locked out her access to that protocol. Jerry's biological signature and voice are suitably twinny for him to reinstate her access. Rachel's part is to kill Jerry when he's unlocked the protocol and then get all dressed up with a LBD and a lovely looking crystal necklace and go to the State of the Union address where her son just so happens to be trumpeting with his school orchestra. She doesn't kill Jerry.

Sonically activated explosive, remember? Oh lovely, the maniacal machine mind is going to explode the crystal around the mother's neck using a trigger in the son's trumpet. Once a certain note is hit in the National Anthem (what else?) caboom goes a football pitch sized portion of Washington DC along with the boy, his mom, the President, the Vice-President, and that whole chain of command.

Not if Billy Bob and Shia have anything to do with it. Rachel can't kill Jerry who is captured by the cops but our friendly officer with the strange teeth has worked out that Jerry is one of the good guys, not one of the suspected terrorist guys. Rosario Dawson has worked this out too and is trying to take Eagle Eye offline at source.

Tense, nervous finale as Thornton sacrifices himself to free up LeBoeuf to be heroic, Dawson does shut down the computer programme but doesn't know the crystal explosive and the trigger are armed and in place. LeBoeuf knows and poses as a cop to get into the building, runs towards the Prez then shoots at the ceiling like he's reenacting a scene from Point Break in an urban setting. The fatal note goes unplayed, everyone is safe, Jerry is a hero, Rachel is a relieved mom.

It's I Robot without the future. It's Enemy Of The State without Will Smith and Karl Marden's buttocky nose. It's not the best couple of hours of cinema by a long, long chalk. But it's also not the worst. POTUS. Tee hee. Silly sounding acronym.