In The Loop

Swearing is often not to everyone's taste. Indeed, excessive swearing can go so far as to detract from an otherwise good script or plot. Yet In The Loop, the film that carries some of the characters from the British political satire The Thick of It into their first feature, not only hits that 'excessive swearing' barrier, but careens through it with such vigour, it comes out the other side still running.


Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), Head of Communications to the PM, sends the Secretary of State for International Development, Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), on a fact finding mission to the US after a series of disastrous interviews have placed the latter in a rather precarious position with regard to the inevitability of war. Meanwhile, Tucker himself also heads to Washington to pull strings and oil the political machine. A series of twists and turns make war seem not only inevitable but imminent, and Foster is forced to the sidelines as he watches things fall apart before his eyes, ineffectually assisted by his own Coms officer, Judy Molloy, and the new bug, Toby Wright (Gina McKee & Chris Addison). 


Judy is dour and worn-down by Tucker's verbal gymnastics. Foster gamely tries to make a stand, and indeed once remarks "I'm on the verge of taking a stand", to the scorn of those around him. Meanwhile, Toby is utterly dislikeable: he's callous and bumbling, and it seems as though the only reason he's got the job he has is through a horrid combination of backstabbing and brown-nosing. Certainly that is what he spends most of his time doing while working for Foster.


But of course, the show is stolen by Capaldi. His Tucker is now gaining a strong reputation in Britain and further afield, not just for the coarseness of his language, but his sheer inventiveness when it comes to insults. He seems never caught off his guard, and to the four writers' credit, they've created a beast of a man who becomes both anti-hero and anti-Christ as he drags the UK towards agreeing to go to war. And yet, for all that, the character is somehow likeable. If not likeable, then admirable. There's a certain poetry to how much Tucker doles out. Even coming head to head with David Rasche or James Gandolfini (big hitters in the US political scene, we are meant to understand), he stands his ground, just about. Then as he tangles with smaller fry, like Anna Chlumsky or Paul Higgins, it's deliciously shocking how rude he can be on first meeting. 


A perfectly solid effort, funny throughout, darkly so, and with an undercurrent of chill when one considers our own recent history. It's a noble effort to suggest that governments may be riddled to the highest level with incompetence and personality clashes and yet still draw out a smile. Or is that just a warning that we're laughing at the wrong things? 


~~~
2009
Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, Chris Addison, James Gandolfini
dir. Armando Iannucci