An ensemble cast brings Armando Iannucci's searing political farce to life (In The Loop (DVD))

Member Name: ambrosino

Product:	In The Loop (DVD)
Date:	26/10/09 (8 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superb characters, vicious humour, terrific dialogue

Disadvantages: May cause cynicism!

In the eyes of his fans, Armando Iannucci and his ever-evolving band of articulate, sweary and subversive political and social satirists can do little wrong. The BBC series The Thick of It, recently enjoying something of a revival and now on its second series, spawned this sharp-tongued farce about the forces that brought the recent/current war in the Middle East to pass. As with its TV companion, comparisons will be drawn with The Office, with its emphasis on foot-in-mouth humour and deadpan, uncinematic cinematography. It brings with it familiar faces and new villains, all muddling along conspiratorially and with varying degrees of competency.

At the centre of the film is an inept British politician (Tom Hollander) whose ill-considered words land him in the middle of the "shall we go to war?" storm. Seized upon and used as a pawn by both sides, the bamboozled chap experiences the American political machine in all its grinding ruthlessness, with Brit colleagues and lackeys along for the ride, all struggling to assert themselves in the face of the infamous "special relationship".

The predictably glorious Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi in arguably his finest role), the spin doctor and ranting verbal behemoth of the TV series, is here in all his sweary glory, terrorising native tourists and young White House hotshots alike while his fellow Scot and psychopath-at-arms Jamie MacDonald (Paul Higgins) holds the fort at home. On the American side Tucker has a suitable match in James Gandolfini, playing an anti-war general who strides about shaking with impotent fury. Chris Addison's junior civil servant is back too, his character bearing a different name but the same flaky, smart-alec guise. His own attempts to further his own career at the expense of others are matched by two warring White House staff who trade insults and backstabs while scurrying around after their masters. Putting it all in bleak perspective is Steve Coogan's angry constituent, hauling the long-suffering Hollander back from his US jaunt to rain verbal hellfire upon him about his crumbling garden wall.

Like The Thick of It, In The Loop succeeds because of two master strokes. Firstly, to take a menagerie of thoroughly dislikeable characters and make us take genuine interest in them. We cringe with them, we cheer at their jawdropping insults, and when it all goes wrong we truly pity them. Secondly, it portrays the staggering disorganisation and flip-floppery of politics with elegant, merciless aplomb, as politicians and their minions hide around corners spying on each other, frantically rewrite the political rulebook and suffer numerous indignities at each others' and their own hands.

Its avoidance of any unnecessary theatricality means it feels less like a film than a fly-on-the-wall excerpt from these characters' lives; anything else would be too far a departure from the style that drew such attention to it in the first place. There is no room here for laboured explanations of everything that is going on; Iannucci credits his viewers with some intelligence, and we're expected to keep up. The themes here are confusion, deception and anti-climax, delivered with humanity and razor-sharp humour that lets no-one off the hook, not even the audience.

Summary: Original, funny and merciless political satire