In The Loop

I've not been to the cinema in ages, but I certainly picked the right film to break my duck. “In the Loop” is a political satire based not-so-loosely on the run up to the vote for the Iraq war which took place at the UN in 2002/03. The film specifically focusses on the British involvement in that vote and how the shadowy powers behind the scenes cynically manipulate MPs, and the media to get what they want.

The main characters are a a limp-wristed middle-of-the-road MP called Simon Foster and the Prime Minister's director of communications Malcolm Tucker. Tucker is so blatantly based on Tony Blair's right hand man Alistair Campbell that it barely even warrants mentioning. He is a grumpy, foul-mouthed bastard who insults his way through every single conversation he has, even when people are being nice to him. Foster is a nobody who accidentally makes a comment about the likelihood of war on the radio, suddenly he is pivotal to the government's stance on international relations and is sent to Washington to liaise with the Americans at the UN.

The film has two strands to it. Most obvious is the political satire. Armando Iannucci's script lampoons the way that the British government went about showing its support for the US's war in Iraq. From the dodgy dossier to the spin and the merciless manipulation of the media, the film gets everything right in pulling apart the dirty tricks of Campbell and New Labour.

The strand of the film that you might not be expecting is the relentless barrage of sweary insults that are thrown around liberally by all the characters, but in particular Malcolm Tucker. I am happy to admit that I find swearing pretty funny, but this was the kind of swearing that a dockworker with a diploma in advanced curse words might struggle to match. There are a lot of films out there that employ a liberal use of the word 'fuck', “In the Loop” however generates a new a creative breed of sweary insults. I only wish I could remember them all.

It's a really clever film which is at the same time ridiculously offensive (in a good way) and funny. Now I'm off to buy the DVD boxed set of 'The Thick of it'.