Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

War isn’t exactly hell in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, but this comedy about the adventures of an embedded journalist in Afghanistan sometimes feels that way.

The film dispenses with much of the usual patriotic flag-waving and hero saluting that dominates these films on the front lines. Yet it lacks a satirical edge in its depiction of behind-the-scenes battlefield shenanigans. It’s not exactly M*A*S*H for a new generation.

Kim (Tina Fey) is a fledgling news journalist who takes a three-month assignment in Afghanistan in 2004 as a way to revive her career. As she embeds with a Marine platoon while wearing a headscarf and sidestepping the catcalling locals, she finds the experience as personally challenging as it is professionally rewarding.

As Kim grows apart from her boyfriend (Josh Charles), she finds a surrogate family of sorts in Kabul, including a trusted Marine sergeant (Billy Bob Thornton), a freelance photographer (Martin Freeman), a kind-hearted translator (Christopher Abbott), and an alluring female colleague (Margot Robbie) who enjoys the attention from the locals.

Kim starts off as a bumbling goofball who’s naïve and idealistic before she goes through a predictable transformation into a tough and sophisticated war-zone veteran, learning some sobering lessons along the way. Emotionally, her character remains as distant as the remote setting.

Rookie screenwriter Robert Carlock (a frequent Fey collaborator on television), who adapted a true-life memoir, generates some scattered big laughs, even though this is hardly new territory by now.

The film doesn’t provide much insight into the conflict or into wartime media coverage, but does offer a sporadically amusing glimpse into the camaraderie away from the front lines — specifically the relationship between the troops and visiting journalists.

However, the film — directed by the tandem of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (Focus) — misses a broader opportunity with its shallow and insensitive examination of a female outsider integrating into a patriarchal society during a period of cultural transition and emerging democracy. The cartoonish portrayal of a horny Afghan diplomat (Alfred Molina) doesn’t help.

The title for Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, of course, has nothing to do with any of those three words. Rather, it’s all about an acronym of the first letter of each — as borrowed from the military phonetic alphabet — which combine to pose an appropriate question for the film as well.

Rated R, 111 minutes.