WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT [2016]

Funny girl Tina Fey takes a bit more of a serious tone in director Glenn Ficcara & John Requa's humorous war drama Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.
Inspired by journalist Kim Baker's time she spent in Afghanistan, during the early years of the war, where she was one of the first American civilians to experience what was really going on there.
These folks are so crazily focused on their career in such a self-centered manner they're hard to like, so thankfully the great cast humanizes them enough to make us see the world from this insane point of view.  WTF brings all sorts of interesting ideas to the table but it simply does not have enough time to fully explore them to make any sort of strong emotional connection.
With another 10 or 15 minutes to flesh out it's army of themes and topics this film would have been an thoroughly engaging character study.

3 beautiful mysterious IKEA bags out of 5

FOCUS [2015]

Soon to be members of The Suicide Squad, Will Smith & Margot Robbie play some professional con-artists in directors Glenn Ficarra & John Requa's delightfully breezy crime-caper Focus.
I don't really need to tell you the story, when the mere mention of con-artists in film says it all; whipper snapper crooks get in way over their heads and blah blah blah.  If you take one look of the poster art and think it looks slick, sexy and silly, you're right on the mark.  If not for the very charismatic leading stars I might have become tired of it sooner, due to some of the groan-worthy twists 'n turns and horribly uneven pacing of it's many reveals.  There's a few lengthy scenes that are actually quite well-done but when it all comes down to it, the generic feel of the whole film is it's major weakness.

2½ ridiculously lucky shots out of 5

CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE [2011]

Glenn Ficarra & John Requa (the writers behind Bad Santa) direct this surprisingly good romantic comedy-drama Crazy, Stupid, Love.

I was expecting cliche after cliche and a number of generic songs played over "dramatic" scenes, which it occasionally resorts to but it mostly focuses on developing the conflicts and faults of the ensemble cast of well-written characters. It's a wonderfully harmless character study balanced with the right amount of comedy, romance and drama to make it bearable, if you're prepared for the unlikely "happily ever after" ending.  

3½ "A"'s for assholes out of 5