Review: In the Loop (2009)

[Mark R. Leeper]

                           IN THE LOOP
                (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

     CAPSULE: This film is sort of "The West Wing (East)"
     meets "The West Wing" as Oscar Wilde might have
     imagined the meeting.  A petty British Minister
     makes an ill-considered statement in public triggering
     a comedy of manners in the upper echelons of
     governments on both sides of the Atlantic.  The plot
     of this film is impenetrable but the dialog is
     hilarious and comes a staccato pace.  This is a comedy
     of political backbiting, in-fighting, and out-fighting.
     It is loosely a spinoff of the BBC comedy program
     "The Thick of It".  Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4) or 8/10

Loose lips sink political careers and start wars.  At this writing
the United States has recently seen a political storm over an
ambiguous statement that Sonia Sotomayor made several years ago.
Frequently an innocent-sounding statement can have serious
political repercussions.

At the same time as this controversy raged by coincidence the BBC
Films was preparing a feature film to be released about a firestorm
of political wrangling following British Minister Simon Foster
(played by Tom Hollander, familiar from PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN)
making a similar gaff.  Foster is being interviewed in the media
and says that in the current situation "war is unforeseeable."
This is a flashpoint of a giant trans-Atlantic incident in both the
United States and British governments just at a time when the
United States may actually be sliding into a war, possibly in the
Middle East.  I will not even try to recount most of the plot.  It
is too complex to relate, but the plot is not really the point of
the film.

What is the point is the dialog.  This is a common British style of
drama.  The plot does not have to be going anywhere if the dialog
is entertaining, and in this film it is riotous.  IN THE LOOP is
like and episode of "The West Wing", but with much cleverer dialog.
This is what the dialog would be if everyone in government talked
in metaphors and had the personality of a viper.  Following
Minister Foster's inexplicably disastrous pronouncement, the Prime
Minister's director of communications, Malcolm Tucker (Peter
Capaldi) flies into action to do damage control.  The rings of
crisis and political manipulation move onward and outward peppered
with betrayals and verbal put-downs.

IN THE LOOP is the brainchild of writer/director Armando Iannucci
who also writes or has written numerous BBC series, notably "The
Thick of It", which has rapid-fire verbal exchanges of much the
same style.  The dialog is even slyer but at the same time more
believable than that of DR. STRANGELOVE.  Notable in the cast is
James Gandolfini as an American general who opposes the war.  He
may be a dove, but his personal attitudes are tinged with Tony
Soprano's special breed of menace.

The film has five different writers each contributing gags
seemingly assembled in a style going back to Sid Caesar.  The
writers have honed their talents writing for the BBC comedy series
"The Thick of It".  They have sprinkled the storyline with tidbits
that actually happened in the Bush Administration, but one just
hopes that most of this is fiction.  Feeding the feeling of
impending doom is that on both sides of the Atlantic the staff that
are handling crisis and defining policy look barely old enough to
have completed college.  This may have been an economical move on
the part of the filmmakers in that one does not expect a twenty-
two-year-old character to be played by a highly paid veteran actor.

What we see is two very confused countries' governments.  The
British over-extend their metaphors and Americans over-extend their
psychoses, and neither has anybody whom you want to trust not to
betray you.  Like DR. STRANGELOVE I would call it a film of
sobering fun.  I rate IN THE LOOP a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale
or 8/10.  Reportedly story of the Office of Future Plans is true.
Dick Chaney set up a committee to plan possible war in Iran and/or
Syria.  So many people wanted to be on the committee that it was
abolished and reformed with a smaller membership.

Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1226774/>

What others are saying:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/in_the_loop/>

					Mark R. Leeper
					mleeper at optonline.net
					Copyright 2009 Mark R. Leeper