Movie Review - 'In the Loop'

In the Loop Starring Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, and James Gandolfini Directed by Armando Ianucci Rated R

"I have spoken to the Prime Minister,” shouts British government communications officer Malcolm Tucker, adding, “whether or not it happened or not is irrelevant. It is true!" That’s the fun and the trouble with In the Loop, a dizzyingly, fast-paced political satire that is less about what is said in government than how it is spoken. You can't afford to take a scene off precisely because there's never an ounce of concrete information. All we know for sure is that the wrong thing was said and it has led both the UK and the US to the brink of invasion. The key word in the entire film is “unforeseeable,” which is how British Secretary of State for International Development Simon Foster describes the possibility of a US-UK invasion of the Middle East. Why someone of his position would be asked such a question in a radio interview or how the ambiguity of the word “unforeseeable” could lead the allies into war seems laughable…until you look at some of the actual reasons we’ve gone to war in the past. "Unforeseeable," of course, basically means the future is not known. And while there were no plans to go to war before Simon said - as diplomatically as possible - that even though there's no war to engage in, you can never really be sure. That response, naturally, leaves a small chance that war is possible, and in the 24-hour news cycle, that's all anybody really needs. On the other side of the pond, director Armando Ianucci mines gold out of the performances of Tom Hollander as Foster and especially Peter Capaldi as Tucker, a communications chief who, ironically, can’t communicate without Roget’s Thesaurus of Obscene Profanity. He’s more pungent at the beginning of the film, which also could be said of the rest of In the Loop. Once it involves a politically minded US general (James Gandolfini) and a conspiring Assistant Secretary of State (David Rasche, channeling Donald Rumsfeld), there might be too many details to keep track of, slowing down the farce. Of course, the argument could be made that the less clarity the film offers the more authentic it becomes, given the circumstances. Shot in the faux-cinema verite style marked by Ricky Gervais’ BBC comedies, In the Loop has just enough unfamiliar faces that it really does feel like an extension of the political world, one marked by insinuation, unintentional humor, big consequences, and tons of question marks.