Amando Iannucci's In the Loop (2009): frenetic like Fawlty Towers, inventively invective-ridden like Deadwood -- imagine Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) and Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) playin' the Dozens. If that doesn't bring it home, maybe you've seen Wag the Dog or Wrong is Right? In the Loop has more snap. More bite. And here, we're talking about a devilishly blistering satire of the Anglo-American policy push for the Invasion of Iraq and resulting debacle, that crazy little thing called the Iraq War (2003-2011).
With In the Loop, we go behind the scenes, then watch with horror as VIPs and their attendants run amok, screaming on mobile phones, bumbling from one cock-up to another while fiendishly plotting behind each other's backs.
Besides the imagery of a blizzard of mobile phones / cellphones and tsunamis of insults, In the Loop delivers "the emotional truth" of the rush to war, sensible opposition to that rush, and -- if you stick with it all the way through -- a well-timed conclusion. The actors -- including James Gandolfini as an American general dubious of the rising chorus for war exactly because it's based on such a flimsy pretext -- are sharp, with a grand party mix of British and Americans. Welcome to the madhouse or, as Scotsman Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi, pictured in the Shepard Fairey-like "poster" above) puts it rather succinctly early on, watch out for "ass-spraying mayhem."
Today's Rune: Protection.
2 comments:
Sounds almost too high energy for me. I'm a laid back kind of guy. Give me The Walking Dead with lots of zombies, my homeys.
Erik, in the loop with two cans and a string? We tried that as kids with very little success!
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