K-SCORE: 73
Director: Armando Iannucci
Writer: Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, Armando Iannucci
Starring: Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, David Rasche, Anna Chlumsky
Spoiler Level: Minor
“successfully satirizes politicians, while simultaneously being vile and tragic to the point of difficult to watch”
Not much happens in In the Loop, which I suppose is appropriate because not much happens in the world of professional politics. Some twenty-odd figures both in the British government and the US government debate the viability of going to war in the Middle East… only not really. Of all those characters, really only three even have opinions on the war, and of those three, only one has done any research into the viability of the war effort. The rest of them are out to impress, to substantiate their own careers, to look good in the media, to make their government look good in the media, and to survive any potential political fallout that comes from the messy business of having to, well, actually govern. This is the film version of Veep, even featuring many of the same actors, and like that show, it successfully satirizes politicians, while simultaneously being vile and tragic to the point of difficult to watch. Thankfully In the Loop has fewer (still some) flubbed god-awful speeches, so it’s by and large more pleasant to sit through.
“constant bullshit justifications, delivered with confidence and a smile”
What In the Loop does well is dialogue. There’s little in the way of character development and even less in the way of plot development. Instead you get a sense of the kinds of people that are actually involved in committees and votes to do something as minor as going to war, the kinds of tricks they play to manipulate the media, the underhanded tactics to get resolutions passed, to highlight or downplay one politician's involvement or another’s, etc. Then you watch those people ruthlessly mock each other for their mistakes, spinelessness, or political knavery. Those that taunt and torment the best are the most amusing, and the movie is successful because many of them are very good. James Gandolfini is great as a retired general now serving as a political advisor. Peter Capaldi is blistering, which is exactly what his role calls for. And David Rasche as an assistant secretary of state on policy is a special kind of despicable and hilarious. He delivers the film’s best line, something so bitterly Washington, DC and incredible I dare not spoil it here. The way he goes about portraying a character who lost any shred of integrity ages ago, if he even ever had any, is perfect - constant bullshit justifications, delivered with confidence and a smile.
So In the Loop is funny, effective satire, and entertaining, so generally quite good, even though so little progress is made from start to finish. Make no mistake, though. You’re dealing with scary subject matter. These are the kinds of people who make decisions that have huge impacts on the lives of millions. Those guys who decided to send your son to war to die, they weren’t above changing an official record of what was said at a meeting to make it look like a better decision, they weren’t above doing it to score brownie points with their immediate superiors, they weren’t above leaking a distraction story to the media so they wouldn’t cover what mattered and then firing a scapegoat over nonsense, they weren’t above deleting all the “cons” in the one paper that actually analyzed the policy, they weren’t above skipping a meeting with a general to play racquetball because they didn’t want to debate the issue and then forcing an aide to lie and say another obligation ran long, they weren’t above literally screwing each other to advance their goals, they weren’t above literally anything. As soon as murder looks good politically, our politicians will kill people. If it looked good for a politician to get a face tattoo that says, “I <3 CANCER,” he’d be inked up and we’d see it post to that man’s Instagram within hours. So many of these people don’t even have opinions on the issues. Those are just decided by the parties. They’re there to take selfies in the motorcade. They know they’re doing well because they can order someone to put new curtains in their office. The end goal is those curtains! It’s to have the biggest, most famous, most heavily-curtained office out there! They want nothing more. And the legislation that has an actual impact on the populous - that’s just a means to the ends. The ends being curtains. Or frosted glass. Or whatever the hell they like best decorating their place of power. The only substantial difference between the kinds of politicians, British and American, portrayed in In the Loop and that exist in reality, is that the real ones are dumber and more dangerous.