In the Loop
2009
***½
Director: Armando Iannucci
Cast: Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, Mimi Kennedy, Anna Chlumsky, David Rasche
Just as the administrations in the US and the UK weigh the pros and cons of a war in the Middle East, a clueless British cabinet minister finds himself in hot water over his comments to the media. Armando Iannucci's feature film debut is a spin off from his TV series The Thick of It (2005-2012), and similar in style to Veep (2012-2019), a series he later developed for HBO. The truth is that the plain visuals and the machine gun dialogue work better in a shorter sitcom format. Nevertheless, this is a sharp, extremely profane, and often funny political satire, which left me alternately exhilarated and exhausted.
