In The Loop

While I was gone, one of the funniest movies of the year came out, and I think it is definitely one of the funniest political movies in quite a long time.

First, let’s be clear. The only real reason you need to see this movie is Malcolm Tucker. Fair warning, the following clip is not meant for delicate ears:

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I think it’s a bit like the Dr. Strangelove of our time, because much like that movie, its characters are caricatures of caricatures, real enough to only capture the essence of particular individuals. And yet it completely embodies a certain… zany quality that Washington so often seemed to have in the time between September 11th and the start of the Iraq war.

But the film would actually be quite dull if its focus rested entirely on the individuals making the decision whether to go or not go to war. We don’t go to the White House in this film, nor do we even go up to Downing Street. Instead, we follow people like Simon Foster, a hapless British foreign minister who becomes a pawn for the Washington hawks and doves. We see the hyperstressed, constantly overwhelmed interns, college age kids that slamdance at a hardcore punk bar at night, then the next day have to scramble to find a way to get their bosses on the list for a secret committee meeting that may or may not exist. As tempers flare and lines in the sand are drawn by their bosses, they’re the ones who have to freak out trying to make sure they don’t end up on the losing side of the power dynamic. And between the two camps, we have the very best aspects of the movie.

I won’t ruin the rest of the movie (SPOILER ALERT: WE GO TO WAR), but it is the sort of movie that gets better the more you watch it anyway. Highly recommended for anyone reading the review over the age of approximately 14 (there really is a LOT of swearing).