A catch up review here of Armando Ianucci’s ‘In the Loop’ a superb political satire based on his BAFTA winning TV series ‘The Thick of It’. The film is now hard to find having largely exited UK cinemas, but if you haven’t seen it, try and catch a performance on the big screen or eagerly anticipate the DVD release.
The plot focuses on dithering politician Simon Foster played by Tom Hollander with superb relish and perhaps a little scorn for that brand of politician. He’s perfectly likeable, perfectly intelligent, but perhaps he shouldn’t be running the country. On the other hand is a show stealing performance from Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker a Scottish PR expert attempting to rebuild Foster’s reputation after an infamous ‘Mountain of conflict’ TV appearence.
The script is wonderful delivering line after line of put down from Tucker and endless soundbites of helplessness from Hollander. ‘You sound like a Nazi Julie Andrews’ is one quote bound to become a classic, whilst a personal favourite is Hollander’s assertion that in Britain we have a phrase ‘Difficult, difficult, Lemon, difficult.’ Classic.
It will bear repeated viewing just so you can keep up with the machine gun dialogue, but it is certainly a rewarding experience especially if you can appreciate a little Scotsman telling you to ‘Go suck my sweaty ball sack.’
The Clapper Bored 