REVIEW: In the Loop

Plot summary for In the Loop from comingsoon.net:

"In the Loop" is a smart comedy with razor-sharp, truly laugh-out-loud dialogue that pokes fun at the absurdity and ineptitude of our highest leaders. With everyone looking out for number one, and the fate of the free world at stake (but apparently incidental), the hilarious ensemble cast of characters bumbles its way through Machiavellian political dealings, across continents, and toward comic resolutions that are unforeseeable.

Well, I really hope government interactions as portrayed in In the Loop don't really work like this. It's was hilarous, yet as the story progressed, serious and depressing moments slowly started building up, and by the end, the importance of these politician's actions became very depressing. An interesting element of the story is that it focused on the government middlemen, people who have "Assistant" in front of their name. Every character had his or her own agenda, and backstabbing and tush-kissing were rampant in this realm of the political sphere.

In the Loop is a zippy political comedy, with so much back-and-forth dialogue the script is probably as thick as War and Peace. This film deserves its adapted screenplay Oscar nomination, if only for its creative use of swearing and swear word combinations. Before In the Loop, I never knew you could use the F-word as a descriptive adjective both before and after the same noun in the same sentence. The banter is pretty non-stop and complete concentration is needed to keep up. We actually resorted to sub-titles about 10 minutes in; with the non-stop verbals and the thick English accent we were starting to lose the main ideas.

Most of this creativity stems from the character of Malcolm Tucker, an angry Scot whose job is fixing other government employee's goof-ups, which is why I imagine he's so angry. In this film, his job is to correct the vocal trainwrecks of unimportant minister Simon Foster, who's "war is unforseeable" quip, quickly followed by "climb the mountain of conflict" apparently doesn't toe the party line.

There is no sympathetic character in the film, everyone is watching out for number one. Interestingly, there is also no true villian. While a couple of individuals are more reprehensible, there isn't a single character who stands up for what's right. For example, the assistant secretary of state character state, Karen Clark, resigns due to "her principles"regarding the war, but this idea was conceived as the best move for her political career.

While its never said as much, the film is obviously commenting on the politics leading up to the Iraq war. The film was balanced in that everyone, regardless of whether they wanted war or not, still cared more about their own careers than the actual consequences of war or not going to war, yet there was still an obvious bias in the movie towards not going to war. The one or two more serious moments where characters discussed the consequences of war were all done from the anti-war side, with no explanations given to why other characters wanted war in the middle east. The audience is just left to assume that it must be for reasons of wealth and political advancement. While having an agenda in a film is perfectly fine, and one of antiwar is quite appropriate right now as the Iraq war is winding down, its a bit unoriginal at this point. Yay, another movie against the Iraq war and the politicians who started - how exciting! (please note sarcasm).

That aside, still a very enjoyable, hilarious, yet serious movie that we recommend seeing.

Wade: 4/5 stars
Kinsey: 4/5 stars