Review of In the Loop (2009) by Daniel C — 04 Jan 2012

A guy I know described this as "West Wing meets The Office" and that turned out to be fairly accurate. Not a kind word to be found in the entirety of the script, but it's clever enough and funny enough that if you have a good sense of humor it shouldn't offend you, and should in fact tickle you.

Basically a bunch of diplomats from English and American offices get together to conspire to lead both countries into a phony war, but factions within both offices are violently opposed and create their own splinter conspiracy. A hilarious verbal (and utterly vulgar) game of chess begins as management tries to one-up each other and underlings attempt to pick sides while weighing their personal ethics against their endangered careers. Interns buzz and orbit around the chaos like flys on shit, double-crossing their friends and forming unlikely alliances. The result is a joke-a-minute riot, full of the kinds of witty observations and clever, biting insults we have come to expect from such cynical farces.

I was very cautious at first because, to me, English humor is some of the most juvenile on the planet. I watch BBC for the semi-authentic journalism and X-Files reruns but when it comes to pitching the funny it feels like they are just catching up to where we were in the 80's. Or perhaps it's aimed at children, and in that regard is quite brilliant. I don't know. But the film does a good job of avoiding being too "limey" or "preachy" or even particularly pretentious; the filmmakers are also sick of listening to the tired debates and instead choose to go for low-brow hilarity, cashing in on our fatigue of propaganda and politics, and they make it work in spades.

Both sides of the Atlantic are given a moderate amount of screen time to cement their ridiculousness, and the cheekiness of the exchanges is accessible enough that one will be excused for lathering in the bitterness along with the characters. There is no clear debate about who is right or who is wrong-- war is about who is left, after all-- because the intention is to poke fun at the idiocy of the situation and the people involved. At first I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of characters (who are introduced almost all at once!) but they are all very specific and memorable in their own way and it's very fun getting caught up in their private struggles.

Even when the humor verges on disgusting it is delivered so authentically dead-pan as to be absolutely gut-wrenching. There are some wonderfully satirical moments here, and battles of wit that quickly compound into fiery exchanges of insults. I loved the American general and his former lover (a diplomat) ducking into a nursery at a party so he can enumerate on a child's calculator what the final casualty report might be. Peter Capaldi tells an American senator that she sounds "like a Nazi Julie Andrews" and tells another that "you are the most boring fucking psychopath I have ever met". Need I say more?

This review just scrapes the surface of the story; the cast does a stellar job and if you have the stomach and the perception for details that dark comedy requires then this is one of the funniest films you will ever see, and an intelligent and thorough political mockery to boot.