The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
Features  |  Reviews
FIND MOVIES
Find a Movie
Movie List
Loading ...
or
Find Theaters and Movie Times
or
Search Movies
Nominate-best-2010

Review: In the Loop

Armando Iannucci wags the war
By PETER KEOUGH  |  July 23, 2009
3.0 3.0 Stars

 

In the Loop | Directed by Armando Iannucci | Written by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Ian Martin, and Tony Roche | with Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, Anna Chlumsky, David Rasche, and Steve Coogan | IFC Films | 106 minutes

Loop dreams: Armando Iannucci and the future of political comedy. By Peter Keough.

Six years ago, Armando Iannucci's slick and merciless political satire might have drawn more blood, but even now it blows away the recent satiric competition with its sharp, sardonic screenplay and uncompromising cynicism. A Wag the Dog, or maybe even a Dr. Strangelove, for the Iraq War, it goes behind the scenes at 10 Downing Street and in Washington, DC, to show how non-existent data and deceptive semantics can be twisted into the deaths of thousands by the ruthless and feckless.

In the second category is Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), a chipmunky ministerial non-entity swept up in the crisis by a slip of the tongue. Cornered by a BBC radio interviewer during a discussion of diarrhea in Africa and compelled to comment on rumors of a possible Iraq-like invasion, he says that "war is unforeseeable." This meaningless sound bite becomes a rallying point for hawks and doves and fresh meat for an insatiably superficial media; the latter prod Foster into further verbal folly when he mutters, "Sometimes on the road to peace, we must climb the mountain of conflict." He's like a malignant Chauncey Gardiner from Being There, or, as Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) the PM's Minister of Information, sputters, "a fucking Nazi Julie Andrews!"

But Foster's no match for Tucker, a foul-mouthed Scottish bully who's like Trainspotting's Begbie with a suit and tie and attaché case. At first Tucker tries to stifle the inadvertent loose cannon, but soon he sees him as a potential asset in the PM's collusion with US administration neo-cons and hawks in building a case for war. Among the hawks is Linton Barwick (David Rasche), who's like a more genial John Bolton. Meanwhile, the few dovish American officials, who include a smug James Gandolfini as a scatologically droll Army general, ponder ways to exploit Foster's all too willing corruptibility.

Iannucci relates these shenanigans with a fluid, pseudo-vérité hand-held camera, rapid-fire dialogue (some of the funniest this year), and abrupt cuts that veer in artistry from the elegance of Robert Altman's The Player to the mannerisms of a sub-par episode of The Office. (In theLoop is in fact derived from Iannucci's BBC series The Thick of It.) The snark percolates non-stop, and everyone shares in it; an odd exception being Steve Coogan, unfunny as a querulous bumpkin. This can get a little cloying. When everyone is in on the joke, at least to a certain extent, the irony stretches thin. Whereas in Dr. Strangelove the characters are all dumb and malevolent or ineffectual and well-intended, no one in In the Loop is innocent. They're all cynics out for their own advantage, though they seldom recognize the best way to go about it.

1  |  2  |   next >
Related: Review: We Live in Public, Review: The Lost Son of Havana, Review: For the Love of Movies, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Politics, U.S. Politics, Armando Iannucci,  More more >
  • Share:
  • Share this entry with Facebook
  • Share this entry with Digg
  • Share this entry with Delicious
  • RSS feed
  • Email this article to a friend
  • Print this article
HTML Prohibited
Add Comment

ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   REVIEW: EDGE OF DARKNESS  |  February 05, 2010
    A new genre is emerging in which aging A-list actors play fathers off on a rampage to rescue their daughters or avenge their deaths.
  •   REVIEW: FROZEN  |  February 03, 2010
    A storm is coming, the girl has to pee, and then things get much worse.
  •   KAREN SCHMEER: 1970-2010  |  February 02, 2010
    Karen Schmeer, the brilliant local film editor whose work on Errol Morris's documentary The Fog of War helped win it the Best Documentary Oscar in 2004, died January 29 in a tragic accident, struck by a getaway car as she was crossing a street in Manhattan. She would have turned 40 on February 20.
  •   IS THERE 'HOPE' IN HOLLYWOOD?  |  January 29, 2010
    Buoyed by President Barack Obama's campaign slogan, many had hopes for change after his election.
  •   REVIEW: WAITING FOR ARMAGEDDON  |  January 27, 2010
    Much scarier than 2012 is this documentary about the death grip that fundamentalist religious groups have on American politics.

 See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2010 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group