by Everett Jensen

Created on: September 09, 2009

In the Loop
directed by Armando Iannucci
written by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
starring Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, Anna Chlumsky, Paul Higgins, Mimi Kennedy, David Rasche, James Smith

Based on the BBC TV-series The Thick of It, this film explores the rottenness in the apple of democracy as a number of nincompoops threaten to shred the very fabric that veils the illusion that everything is alright.

George Bernard Shaw once said Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. According to this film, both the British and American populations must deserve very little in terms of actual governing because the government representatives seem wholly incompetent, spiteful little tyrants who are utterly incapable of ruling with any authority.

The dialog in this film is buck shot tearing into the hindquarters of the beasts that make up the majority of the political order. The English come across as wretchedly managed while the Americans are merely incompetent.

Woe to the world that is left in the hands of these nattering nabobs of negativity to quote Pat Buchanan. Everything they do turns to dust in their hands and it is only the people who truly suffer. These rascals continue to live softly, easily, and as long as they can keep their jobs they have no worries whatsoever unlike a fair percentage of their constituents who remain grossly anguished.

In the film, the west is on the verge of war with the Middle East. A thesis paper outlining the pros and cons of war written by an aid named Liza Weld (Chlumsky) is used by Karen Clarke (Kennedy), the assistant secretary of diplomacy, and eventually leaked to the media which causes a major uproar amongst the hawks for its anti-war bent.

The Prime Minister's media mouthpiece Malcolm Tucker (Capaldi) is a vitriolic, nasty piece of work who scorns everyone and everything within earshot. He's a foul mouthed little weasel who nevertheless seems like the voice of reason sometimes in this bitterly scathing assault on everything that many people hold dear. Tucker is so mean-spirited and disagreeable to most but to me he's a breath of fresh air considering how rare it is to confront a character with such a sharp tongue and so much venom to inject into the soft underbelly of what is left of democracy.

There is no hope to work things out in this film. There is no tidy, happy little ending where suddenly these very important people

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