Release Date: 7/31/09 (Limited)
In the Loop, directed by Armando Iannucci and written by a group of five different people is a smart witty political satire. The film takes a different approach to the war in the Middle East: comedy. It is tightly written and when the jokes work they work very well, but the fast paced foul-mouthed British humor gets to be to much at points and takes away from the story as a whole.
In the Loop takes a look at the madness that is the political situation in the world today. Though the American president and the British prime minister are itching to attack, Lt. Gen. George Miller (James Gandolfini) and the British Secretary of State for International Development, Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) believes that’s the wrong decision. However, a small miscommunication by Foster has the two powers ready to go to war, and it’s up to the British side to stop things before they get started. This sharp political satire also stars Peter Capaldi, Gina McKee, Chris Addison, and Steve Coogan.
The funniest character of this movie is by far Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker. He is foul-mouthed fast-talking offensive and hilarious. He doesn’t really care who it is he is talking to or what rank they are he is always quick to insult them and tell them to “fuck off”. I was dying at every scene he was in as he calls people names and makes a lot of pop culture references. Especially a scene where him and Gandolfini go toe-to-toe spitting insults in each other’s face I really thought it was going to end in a fistfight. Gandolfini is the next best part of this film. He does whatever he wants and it was awesome to see him in a comedic role, he really pulled it off a very funny performance.
The other performances were very well done to. I thought the casting was odd because I only recognized a few faces, but the ones I didn’t worked well together. Especially Anna Chlumsky, who played Liza Weld and Zach Woods, who played Chad. There interaction with each other was another fun part of the film. They went back and forth poking fun at each other’s work. Chad was always saying that Liza was committing career suicide. I laughed every time they went at it, and it never got old.
The writing is what makes this comedy work so well. It reminded me of the show The Office, an R-rated version of the BBC series. It’s dumb people working in politics and the awkward situations that follow. Tom Hollander is pretty much like a Michael Scott, as you laugh at him but feel sorry for him at the same time. It is very very fast paced with jokes coming so fast you won’t be able to catch everything the first time through. At times I found it frustrating because the dialogue was so rapid and the British accent is tough to understand sometimes, that I missed a lot of the jokes that were happening. This made it hard to get really into the story.
In conclusion, In the Loop is a funny political satire, but definitely not for everyone. The writing is funny but not funny enough to be MADE.
“Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult”
IMDB: 7.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
Moviewiseguys: 7.5/10