FILM CHALLENGE: 107) In The Loop

107) In The Loop

Director: Armando Ianucci

Year: 2009

Plot Summary: Socially inept and exceptionally dull Minister Of International Development, Simon Foster, has caused outrage among his peers and sparked media frenzy by accidently mentioning a possible attack on the Middle East. Malcolm Tucker has been sent to pull the right and immediately dispatches him on a 'fact-finding' trip to Washington.

In The Loop is not only the single sharpest political satire that has graced the big screen since Dr. Strangelove, but it's also one of the funniest movies that recent cinema has brought us.

The laughs come so hard and so fast that it's almost impossible to take it all in on one viewing. The first time I watched it when it was released in cinemas last year, the audience was howling so loudly that I missed a good third of the lines. Even on my fourth viewing, in fact, I still found myself hearing jokes that I'd missed before because I was too busy catching my breathe.

But what is so fascinating about In The Loop regardless of how many times I've seen it, is how it so perfectly captures the current political issues in the UK and the USA. The corruption, the blackmail, the quest for power and how nobody really knows what on Earth is going on prior to the war is fantastically portrayed by Armando Ianucci.

It's a disturbing subject to tackle but Ianucci, who created also the award winning BBC show The Thick Of It on which In The Loop is based, is able to do it with just the right mixture of hilarity and cynicism. You'll laugh and laugh until your jaw is aching but, in the back of your mind, you know just how true and how terribly wrong this all is.

Sure, it would be easy to pick at the fact that it diverges away from the plot a little bit and the scenes with the American characters aren't quite as brilliant as those in the UK, but when a movie offers this much laughter for your money, complaining about little things like that is pointless.

4/5

By Daniel Sarath with 2 comments