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"IN THE LOOP", SERPENT TONGUES GET A WORKOUT

It's hard to imagine a situation where the proper way for a political aide to exit a conversation is a with a cheerful "fuckitty-bye!". But in Armando Iannucci's  "In the Loop" such pleasantries are spit out with high velocity and reckless abandon. The leader of the charge is a British press officer, Malcolm Tucker, played by a brilliant Peter Capaldi. Loosely based on Tony Blair's press secretary Alastair Campbell, Tucker's deftness with four letter words makes Eminem seem like Barney. Most of his vitriol is aimed at Simon Forester (Tom Hollander), a hapless international development minister who once said in a BBC interview that "war is unforeseeable".

Though the country in the Middle East referenced in "In the Loop" remains unnamed, the film puts us somewhere in the months leading up to the Iraq war. The Americans are looking for an ally in military action. Forester's verbal gaffe starts a fire, and American hawks and doves alike try to make him their spokes-puppet. The road to war becomes paved with his catch-phrases.

This film is extremely funny, full of the kind of dry British wit that Americans tend to envy. I don't think I've ever laughed so loud in a cinema. About halfway through I tried to sublimate my chuckles into quiet body convulsions, lest an outburst force me to miss the next round of acidic dialogue. Insult is elevated to high art: "You sound like a Nazi Julie Andrews," Tucker tells Forester after the latter informs a reporter that Britain is ready to "climb the mountain of conflict". On the American side, Capitol Hill is presented in pitch-perfect detail: James Gandolfini, a military hero turned dove, analyses prospective casualties on a child's toy calculator; a state department bigwig played by Mimi Kennedy suffers a toothache in a meeting and then proceeds to bleed grotesquely from the mouth (making the line between female politician and vampire witch seem ever so thin).

Though the interpersonal connections between these characters are weak, the verbal connections aren't. Iannucci stretches English to its taffy-like limits. What we say means nothing and means everything. Public language is manipulative and calculating; private language is colourful and just as dangerous.

Iannucci has managed to create a successful satire about the politics of the Iraq war. He has coated the truly scary behaviour of power-hungry buffoons with ticklish tongue aerobics. It is only near the end that he lets everything unravel and the consequences of these actions become plain. But by then we know how it all ends, and how much we were left out of the loop.

Watch the Tea with The Economist interview below in which Iannucci considers  American and British differences on screen.

~ ARIEL RAMCHANDANI

Picture Credit: cornfed1975 (via Flickr)