2009. 106 mins. Rated R.
‘Climbing the mountain of conflict’? You sound like a Nazi Julie Andrews!”
Loose lips sink ships, they say. Nowhere is this more a truism than the insane world of politicians, where a careless whisper can turn rumor into a full-blown war. In the Loop is just that; a brash and giddy tongue-in-cheek whirlwind peek behind the curtain of politics and political insiders, both stateside and across the pond in Britain. A who’s who cast of hilarious characters, most of whom sport potty mouths that would make a sailor blush, including veteran swearer and twelfth Doctor (Whovians know what I’m talking about!) Peter Capaldi, who is at turns hilarious, vicious, and almost walks away with the entire film under his arm. Yep, he’s THAT good.
But so is the director and co-writer Armando Iannucci, who is certainly no stranger to this type of poly-dram send up, in fact, it is very much his entire wheelhouse, given his other hits like Showtime’s Veep and the BBC’s The Thick of It, which In the Loop seems to be channeling (and using many of the same actors). A parody of the run-up to a potential U.S./U.K. invasion of the Middle East, both leaders (i.e. the President and Prime Minister) and their respective subordinates are not exactly sold on the idea, with lines being drawn between the two camps both for and against war.
As the film opens we see Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), the constantly angry Director of Communications for the Prime Minister, arrive at work and immediately catch up on a BBC Radio interview recorded with Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), the Secretary of State for International Development and MP for Northampton, saying something stupid, so monumentally stupid that it becomes one of the touchstones of the entire film. It is such a small thing but entirely not “walking the line” as Malcolm would put it, as Simon says something seemingly innocent when asked about a war in the Middle East, he states that it is “unforeseeable.”
Of course, his statement, compounded with a later interview (where he tries to walk the previous statement back and ends up digging himself a deeper hole, ‘natch) where he states that there may be a need to “climb the mountain of conflict,” creates ripples that reach across the ocean to certain U.S. officials who want to use this sound bite to their advantage. In particular, Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy), the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomacy and Liza Weld (Anna Chlumsky), her assistant and author of the “Post War Planning: Parameters, Implications and Possibilities” or PWIP PIP, and “armchair general” Lieutenant General George Miller (James Gandolfini), the Senior Military Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, all glom onto Simon and try to use him as their U.K. ‘hawk’ to help make their case for war. But words are weapons too, especially from the mouths of witty Brits. The wordplay, the witty script, the dazzling gems of curses that spill from the mouths of so many characters (especially Capaldi, who is the grandmaster of workplace insults, in one of my favorite zingers when describing a female co-worker whom he clearly detests as “the leaky f-ing mingebox.” Ouch.)
There are so many characters on both sides of the political divide, and the film really utilizes them all, showcasing inept, young rising stars that populate politics, and the older, obstinate, and weaselly elder members, and letting us know that no matter how old, no one comes across looking good. The entire cast is stuck in a system that forces them not only to act like idiots, but to slowly and truly become idiots. Even the people who surround Simon and try to coach him, chiefly Judy Molloy (Gina McKee), the Director of Communications for the Department of International Development and newbie Toby Wright (Chris Addison), Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for International Development, keep screwing things up, especially Toby, who tries to use his contacts in D.C. to give his boss opportunities to fix his sloppy quotes, which backfire miserably.
Through Iannucci’s sarcasm and black humor, we are shown the ineptitude of politics, the inefficacy of politicians to do even the simplest things, the perfect evidence brought by one of Simon Foster’s constituents, Paul Michaelson (hilariously played by Steve Coogan), who was given Toby’s cell phone number to personally contact him about a wall falling down in his mother’s backyard in Northamptonshire, and the inability to fix even this simple problem causes Simon to become the target of newspaper cartoons as a walrus straddling the Great Wall of China (to cite just one fun example).
But things are just heating up across the pond as Linton Barwick (David Rasche), the prickish U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Policy, begins the war cry and rallies his allies in a backroom meeting called the Future Planning Committee (which garners the unofficial title the War Committee), but Toby, through his Washington contacts, unknowingly leaks the meeting to the press, and now EVERYONE crashes this thing.
Throughout the movie there are some standout performances and scenes which really make this film great fun to watch: the snide remarks from Chad (Zach Woods), the junior staffer at the U.S. State Department and totally annoying suck up; the sad exchange between Toby and Suzy (Olivia Poulet), his girlfriend and civil servant at the Foreign Office, who, after Toby cheats on her for the second (third?) time, says he did it to “try to stop the war;” and Jamie McDonald (Paul Higgins), self-professed “crossest man in Scotland” and Senior Press Officer in the Office of the Prime Minister, who angrily destroys a fax machine Office Space-style in front of shocked coworkers.
Deception, backstabbing, backpedaling abound; even Simon who was touted as the U.K. hawk tries to reverse his position by stating that he was “playing a cleverer game than that, one of the ‘fake hawk,’” to wit Lt. Gen. Miller says, “you’re an idiot. Or are you a fake idiot?” For Iannucci, politics are the butt of a great cosmic joke, the glad-handing and crow-eating and wordsmithing, no matter what side it comes from, and no matter which country, it all sounds and feels the same, and produces the same result. Comedy.
Watch-Aike(s): Veep (2012-) created by Armando Iannucci
The Thick of It (2005-) dir. by Armando Iannucci
