SimonJack
Some of the ballyhoo about "In the Loop" labels it as a comedy satire. That it is a farce, one can't dispute. But it seems to be a farce more about movies and moviemaking than about politics. There is some comedy, but not much. This is mostly a running rant of one person toward another. Most of the time, it involves one character, Peter Capaldi who plays Malcom Tucker. Is this comedy? Nearly two hours of people shouting at one another? At least no one else tried to take the expletive crown away from Tucker. The guy is in a constant uproar. He goes ballistic through much of the film. That's acting? That's supposed to be comedy? Could this be an example that Hollywood (on both sides of the pond) is receding towards prehistoric times? That was a time when cave men had so little language and communicated by grunts, growls, smashing, yelling, prodding and agitating. I guess it has to pass if there no longer are people who can write witty dialog and devise truly hilarious antics and scenes.This film is almost shocking in Tucker's portrayal as an egomaniacal British pol with such a limited vocabulary. According to the Oxford English Corpus list, the most commonly used words in the English language are "the," "be," "to," "of," "and," "a," "in," "that", "have," and "I." Rounding out the 100 most used words, the list goes on - "it, for, not, on, with, he, as, you, do, at," and so on. Nowhere in this list is the word, "fuck." Yet, it's so obviously frequently used in this film. It may constitute 50 percent of the dialog by Malcolm Tucker. It sure has moved into the top 10 words of the language used here. With such a limited vocabulary, Tucker's ascendancy to high office in the politics of England does not speak well for England or English society of modern times. If that's what the satire or spoof is about, it's a wild stretch for humor. Rather, more effort should have gone into the obvious incidence for satire. That is Tom Hollander's Simon Foster miscue on the air. This mayhem may be what modern critics find so clever as to call it satire and great comedy. One doubts if any of them ever have seen great satire, especially any of the political classics. "The Great Dictator" of 1940, "The Senator was Indiscreet" of 1947, "Dr. Strangelove" of 1964 and "Wag the Dog" of 1997 stand out as great political satires. Compared to such films, "In the Loop" must be considered a "B" level production, and not a very good one at that.The only good line of dialog in the whole film comes from James Gandolfini as Gen. Miller. He is talking to Karen Clark (played by Mimi Kennedy) about a prospective war. He says, "And at the end of a war, you need some soldiers left, really, or it looks like you lost."
Mr-Fusion
All throughout, "In the Loop" consistently evoked "Dr. Strangelove" for me. It's got that absurdist bent that seems to go well with players in the political realm, and the cast seemed to relish in the unbelievable dialogue so it all goes down velvety smooth. I'm not sure how this flew so under my radar, and I'd only heard of it because of "Veep" (and it's clear how this movie eventually spun off that show). The wit is sharp, the reprimands are nasty and the humor borders delightfully on farcical. Highly recommended for its salty temperament.7/10
jamieunitt
This is supposed to be a spin-off of the 'thick of it'. It isn't. Don't get me wrong, I love the thick of it, it's one of my favourite comedies. But this just, well, sucked. This is for a number of reasons 1. They changed the names of most of the characters Most of us who watched the Thick of it recognised people such as James Smith as Glenn or Chris Addison as Olly, not 'Michael' and 'Tobey' 2. The plot was terrible The entire story took a way too 'action film-like' tone, and doesn't even take place in DoSAC for God's sake! I also don't see involving the entire 'Anglo-American' side to it was particularly good either. I see that Iannuci is trying to make a link between his two political satires -The thick of it and 'Veep'. But it just didn't work 3. It focused to much on the American side of things Don't get me wrong, I don't hate America the way I seem to, but if this is a supposed spin-of of 'The thick of it', then surely it would've focused on the British rather than the American perspective 4. there are certain plot holes Little things such as the fact that Emma is shown as being in a relationship with Tobey, despite being in a relationship (if you can call it that) with Olly at this point in the 'Thick of it', and the way that Malcolm Tucker is shown to try and get the UN assembly to vote in favour of war - this doesn't seem a very Malcolm Tucker thing to do. he usually wants to do the least controversial, non-mess up decision
