In the Loop (2009)

Should I be writing about an overtly political movie while I'm still awash with grief and frustration at the transcendent idiocy of the British electorate? Maybe, maybe not. Probably not, in fact, as I generally do my best to keep my beliefs to myself and leave the arguing to those lucky people whose rage doesn't leave them tongue-tied.

Still, certain truths remain constant no matter who's in power, and chief amongst these is the one about those who most want power being those least suited to wielding it. It's a fact that's kept the best satirists happily employed since time immemorial, and right now the best of the best, in my opinion, is Armando Iannucci, one of the driving forces behind the Alan Partridge movie as well as any amount of other, more incisive fare.

In the Loop is Iannucci's first feature-length piece, not quite a spin-off from his acclaimed TV series The Thick Of It but definitely inspired by it. Rather than staying within Whitehall, however, the film elects to go transatlantic, taking Peter Capaldi's legendary swearmaster Malcolm Tucker and repurposing him as the UK government's Director of Communications, then putting him in charge of damage limitation when gormless Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), the Secretary of State for International Development, declares on national radio that war in the Middle East is "unforeseeable". Such a bold statement catches the interest of certain parties within the US government, such as Senator Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy) and James Gandolfini as Lt. Gen. George Miller. Before long, Foster's status as a political pawn is confirmed, and it's up to him and aide Toby (Chris Addison) to... well, no, absolutely nothing is up to them, and that's kind of the point. It's possibly up to them to try and avoid yet another bollocking from Tucker, but try is very much the operative term.

The good

I'm sort of at a loss as to how to write about this one. Granted, I've written about other mockumentaries - the format is, after all, a favourite of mine - but In the Loop is a little more verité than most. Obviously, neither I nor anybody else reading this blog will have walked the corridors of power, but it's all fairly believable, or at least, it's all the way my inner cynic secretly suspects things might be.

The script, of course, is absolutely dazzling; it starts off amusing and ascends quickly into being laugh-out-loud funny as the farce gradually escalates. True, political aficionados will probably gain the most from it, but the writing is sharp enough and the set-up simple enough that there's plenty that can be appreciated by anybody with an ear for a well-turned zinger.

The bad

Once again, I'm not entirely sure I want to criticise here, but it would be wrong of me not to mention certain genre limitations - the narrative structure is loose, to say the least, and requires a reasonable amount of attention for the viewer not to fall through the holes. Fans of The Thick Of It, meanwhile, whilst obviously being far too intelligent to be confused by series regulars in completely new roles, might at least find it rather distracting.

The verdict

A sweet, rather nostalgic reminder of those warm and happy times when all we had to worry about from our government was incompetence and a little light warmongering. Will we ever see those halcyon times again?