Cinema Nova, 30/01/2010
Status: Still behind, but only by a bit.
I’m a fan of British comedy. I rarely meet one that I don’t get along with. And a British comedy with a brain and an anti-war message? Phew-y, I’m a goner.
In the Loop is an adaptation of director Armando Iannucci’s own BBC series “The Thick of It”, now in it’s third season. It tells a fictional-ish-ised version of the lead up to the 2003 Iraq invasion. It’s an excellent companion piece to the real-life contemporary story of parliamentary inquiry into British involvement in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Blair's remorseless defence of himself.
In the Loop follows some small and medium sized cogs in the Governmental machines of the US and Britain as they frantically run around either fabricating the evidence required to invade Iraq or trying to talk sense into the war mongers.
The large cast of mostly television actors and stand-up comedians is extremely well chosen. They deliver dead-pan comedy swiftly and assuredly. The are plenty of laughs to be had, usually from the foul-mouthed insults that are constantly flung about.
The cinematography is almost entirely hand-held which is something that usually drives me bananas. Here, though, I am willing to forgive it, because serves the film well. It adds a sense of intimacy to the whispered backroom dealings and allows the actors greater freedom to ad lib and build an energy that is harder to create with a more staged approach. It keeps the pace roaring along.
The thing that stays with me though, after the laughs have faded, is how little transparency and honesty there is in the process of recommending that countries go to war. Secret committees, stand over tactics and butchered documents make it frighteningly easy it is for some big swinging dicks to manipulate an abhorrent course for massively powerful countries. Frigh-ten-ing.
