Some background for you: In the Loop is a spin off film of a BBC television series called The Thick of It that has been running since 2005. I’ve never seen a single episode of the series save for a few clips that are available on Youtube. But I’m afraid that my wallet is about to get a lot lighter due to my quest to find and procure the entirety of this series.¬† Psst.¬† Netflix, please!

Per the wikipedia article on the series, In the Loop doesn’t stray too far from the its originator as it follows hopefully fictitious versions of the types of people in British parliament. The main crux of the story deals with Malcolm Tucker (played by my new favorite person, not just favorite actor, PERSON, Peter Capaldi) the Director of Communications for British Parliament and his attempts to fix, stop, or somehow make the comments about an “unforeseeable” war in the Middle East work for parliament and their party line. ¬†This catalyst is propagated¬†by Minister for International Development, Simon Foster (Tom Hollander, Pirates of the Caribbean). Members of the U.S. Government (including James Gandolfini in role that I actually like him in, being the most notable) on both the “for” and “against” sides of the war jump on the Minister’s comments and attempt to use him in a ploy to meet either of their own ends.

If that very brief summary bored the shit out of you, clean yourself up and rent this movie anyway. This isn’t the movie you think it’s going to be…well actually it is and it isn’t. It’s all politics but that’s merely a back drop to the general depravity of the characters and their willingness to absolutely screw each other over to get what they want which is usually to further their own careers.¬† This would be a horrible, depressing movie if it wasn’t so fucking funny. The writers for this movie, and the series on which it is based, use former advisers and in some cases former parliament members to help aid in their writing. A lot of the brilliant and sharp dialogue coupled with horrible people running our lives, while not necessarily present in reality, is in fact based in reality. The writers pull no punches with any of these characters and even the most idealistic and as close to noble as they can get in this film are all, ultimately, irredeemable. But the writing isn’t all tongue-in-cheek, proper British discourse.

The character of Malcolm Tucker makes this movie and you will wait, hope and pray for Malcolm to show back up on the screen whenever he’s not there. That’s not to discredit any of the other characters in the least; they are all very entertaining even, as I mentioned, Gandolfini’s Lt. Gen. Miller (I really hate most of his stuff, if you didn’t know) is a joy to watch and laugh at. But…well…if you know nothing of this movie or the series then “Tucker’s Law,” as recited in The Thick of It, seems to sum up his character:

Malcolm Tucker’s insults are treatises in dehumanization. The sheer brutality of the words are compounded by the hate and contempt for incompetence Capaldi infuses into Malcolm. Peter Capaldi is supposedly one of the nicest, most gentle human beings to have ever walked this earth after Buddha. But as described by one of his costars during some improv before filming their first scene in The Thick of It, “the veins popped out of his neck, his eyes out their sockets, then came the cursing and I was scared.” The man’s only mission is to safeguard the PM from “stupid cunts” that threaten the party’s line. Cursing has never been more poetic than with this character. If you needed another reason other than to laugh to watch this movie, watch it to learn how to cuss and insult people better.

So the movie did it’s job and it did beyond well. It satirized the crap out of government in a wholly entertaining way. If my write up didn’t convince you, at least rent the movie to see what Anna “My Girl” Chlumpsky turned out. Yeah, she’s in there.¬† Approved and Recommended.

A tea towel, for your trouble