Britain and America have had a special relationship as far back as anyone can remember. Both the President and Prime Minister feel like a war but not everyone is on their side – amongst them, US Assistant Secretary for Diplomacy, US Army General (James Gandolfini) and the British Minister Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) who’s in way over his head. When Foster announces by mistake on national TV that ‘war is unforeseeable,’ the British government tumbles into a spiral of confusion and spin. Foster tries to defuse the chaotic consequences of his comment with yet more gaffs. He finds himself bundled off to Washington where he is made both pawn for the secret war committee and figure head of the General and the Assistant Secretary for Diplomacy’s anti-war campaign.
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Reviews
The Daily Express
Allan Hunter
"The savage comedy of In The Loop is enough to justify hailing it as a triumph. What takes it to a different level is the way that Iannucci and a great team of writers ultimately manage to make the smile freeze on your face."
17/04/2009
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Time Out
Dave Calhoun
"But mostly Iannucci keeps the pace up with snappy twists and turns, a tone that mixes screwball with precise observation and by keeping a keen eye on the performances of even minor characters, such as the over-achieving, barely legal automatons that pepper the offices of Washington. It’s a film that is both insanely funny and a desperate cry for sanity."
16/04/2009
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The Times
Wendy Ide
"It’s cynical, aggressive and volcanically profane. It features a script that crafts its scabrous insults with the same meticulous care and creativity employed by Michelangelo during the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The satire steams and fizzes like concentrated sulphuric acid. It is blisteringly offensive."
16/04/2009
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Total Film
Jonathan Dean
"In The Loop is a smart, outrageous exposé of pillock politicians and their puppeteers, a satire sure to end the year in a two-film race with Brüno for the funniest of 2009."
30/03/2009
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Channel 4 Film
Matthew De Abaitua
"In a sense, In The Loop sees the BBC revisiting the grave of its reputation, wearing the shiny red nose of satire. In The Loop could be criticised for its reliance on inventive swearing to keep the comic turbines turning. Also, its aesthetic - a down-at-heel public service realism - is not particularly cinematic. Yet the acuity of its satire keeps you laughing long after you've left the cinema."
17/06/2009
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The Evening Standard
Derek Malcolm
"Its drawback is a scattergun approach that leaves no one looking other than absurd, so that you can laugh it off too easily and might even tire of its implacable cynicism. But the screenplay (a collaborative effort between Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell and Tony Roche) and the playing, rather than the direction, deserve most of the praise that In the Loop is sure to attract."
16/04/2009
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The Independent on Sunday
Jonathan Romney
"Despite the plentiful and wildly exotic profanity on display – there's no doubt that Malcolm's "lubricated horse cock" will be on the nation's lips, as it were – it's the bitterness, the anger, the sheer exuberant contempt of its satire that make In the Loop so potent. The film might not quite capture the intense, mesmerising focus of Iannucci's half-hour TV episodes, but, with its style of quasi-documentary wobble adapting perfectly to the big screen, In the Loop is incisive, chastening, and very nearly as good a political farce as Robert Altman's Tanner '88."
19/04/2009
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The Daily Mail
Chris Tookey
"Alastair Campbell isn't entirely wrong about In The Loop. It's a messy, unstructured comedy with moments of naivety and an unnecessarily dark view of politicians... But it's mercilessly accurate in its analysis of what's most wrong with New Labour, and it made me laugh out loud at least 20 more times than The Boat That Rocked."
17/04/2009
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The Mirror
Mark Adams
"It could be argued that In The Loop is perhaps a bit too complex for its own good, but it contains more quotable lines in one five-minute burst than in most Hollywood comedies."
12/04/2009
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The Scotsman
Alistair Harkness
"But it is funny, and not in a chuckle-along-to-prove-how-clever-you-are sort of way. Iannucci, along with co-writers Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell and Tony Roche, have crafted a raucous script that if nothing else proves that, when done properly, swearing can be big and clever. With a rat-a-tat-ferocity and mind-boggling inventiveness, the film succeeds in turning the air blue with some deliciously depraved dialogue."
17/04/2009
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Variety
Dennis Harvey
"Screenplay full of quotable quips and the direction occasionally approach smartass overload. And, truth be told, the ultimate point isn’t all so deep. But intelligent political satire this expertly acted is nothing to sneeze at; “W.” could have used a little more of its hurtling astringency."
19/01/2009
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The Sunday Times
Cosmo Landesman
"In the Loop simply reasserts the same message British satire has been offering since the 1960s: politics is a farce, politicians are a bunch of buffoons and self-serving idiots, devoid of principles or any real commitment to public service. There is something intellectually lazy in this kind of one-size-fits-all cynicism. In the Loop may be the funniest British comedy in ages — which isn’t saying much — but its satirical bark is much louder than its bite."
19/04/2009
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
"In the Loop continues the demolition of what little faith remains in the political processes of this country. It is a rollicking entertainment for some of the time, and a sulphurous study in bare-faced cynicism pretty much all of the time. An achievement of sorts, though I wish I could have liked it more."
17/04/2009
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The Daily Telegraph
Sukhdev Sandhu
"In the Loop, like a lot of Iannucci’s work, is technically brilliant, but fatally flawed by the extent to which it is fascinated by – dotes on, even – the culture that it purports to abhor. It’s a sharper, bawdier version of Yes, Minister. And ultimately just as cosy, colluding in our cynicism about politicians rather than challenging it. "
23/04/2009
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The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
"The parody of diplomatic complication is wearingly complicated: if you can follow the plot you should be in the Civil Service. Sometimes a funny line rears up to relieve the fatigue, though at my screening the loudest laugh was occasioned by a fortuitous topicality. Says a Westminster MP: “I’m dead scared if I watch a porno it’ll end up in the register of members’ interests.”"
15/04/2009
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