Mix The West Wing’s knowingness of policy wonks with The Office’s deadpan, mockumentary-style humor, and then throw in Wag the Dog’s scabrous, pessimistic take on the political motives for going to war, and you have In the Loop.
Of course, you also have the ingredients for a cynical, deceptive campaign to launch an unnecessary and disastrous American war — in Iraq, to our nation’s everlasting regret.
In the Loop presumes that the British government is strong enough, and malevolent enough, to want to push an ill-planned war on its public and the world, from the beginning. This acerbic film, with its awesome parade of sometimes venal, sometimes repressed characters, features pitch-perfect acting by a lot of television veterans, most not familiar to American moviegoers. It also has witheringly fast-paced, obscenity-spewing dialogue (think Withnail & I) that is delivered rat-a-tat style. A team of five British-television comedy writers developed it, and one of them, Armando Iannucci, also directed.
In the Loop is qualified to open Cincinnati World Cinema’s fall Global Cinema Series, which will bring 10 international features to the Carnegie Arts Center in Covington. It screens at 6:30 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Also on Sunday, a Kazakhstan film, Song From the Southern Sea, shows at 4 p.m. (and then repeats at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 7).
Read more about the film here.
