In the Loop Movie Hollywood 2009
Genres: Art/Foreign, Comedy, Adaptation and Politics/Religion
Release Date: July 24th, 2009
Starring: James Gandolfini, David Rasche, Anna Chlumsky, Paul Higgins, Gina McKee
Directed by: Armando Iannucci
Produced by: Christine Langan, David M. Thompson, Paula Jalfon (II)
Review
The US President and UK Prime Minister fancy a war. But not everyone agrees that war is a good thing. The US General Miller doesn't think so and neither does the British Secretary of State for International Development, Simon Foster. But, after Simon accidentally backs military action on TV, he suddenly has a lot of friends in Washington, DC. If Simon can get in with the right DC people, if his entourage of one can sleep with the right intern, and if they can both stop the Prime Minister's chief spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker rigging the vote at the UN, they can halt the war. If they don't... well, they can always fire their Director of Communications Judy, who they never liked anyway and who's back home dealing with voters with blocked drains and a man who's angry about a collapsing wall.
If you are a fan of political comedy, you will really enjoy this film and I must confess to not having seen the TV series it is spun off from, The Thick of It. This film has a good cast which demonstrates the political complexities and how a few miss timed words can hilariously de-rail the opposition to proposals. The plot could be conceived to be dangerously close to real life political events, which makes the way the arrive at the outcome truely scary!
The No.10 character does use some offensive language, but it will always make you laugh - especially when used on the Americans! Brilliantly thrown into the mix are constituency matters which all MPs have -with Steve Coogan at his best - and I felt it was a cocktail for a very good film. Enjoy!
If you watched the TV series then a lot of the actors in this film will be familiar and the pace and language won't come as too much of a shock. It's sharp, witty and pacey in style with the most creative swearing I've heard in a long time (well since South Park the movie if I'm honest).
It's easy to see this as merely a movie version of the TV show, but In the Loop stands on its own as a very clever version of real life events from the recent past. If even half of this is true it's terrifying and from reading interviews with Armando Ianucci I suspect that more than half of it is.
Peter Capaldi steals the movie, with Tom Hollander a close second as the incompetent minister from DfID. If you watch this and don't find it funny maybe stick with JCVD movies instead.
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