|
|
 |
| |
Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker, and Chris Addison as Toby |
Deadly spins of Blair government?
IN THE LOOP
Directed by Armando Lannucci
Certificate 18
YOU will already know the story: the President of the United States fancies invading a Middle-Eastern country.
He knows he can rely on the support of the wimpish British PM, who likes nothing more than being a White House lapdog. And he knows he has a band of sycophants on Capitol Hill who are looking for an excuse for a dust-up.
But before the operation can start, there are a couple of problems to be ironed out – namely, making up the reason for war, and what its aims will be. Then there are the few members of the US and British governments who believe that a conflict on such spurious grounds is not the best way to go about things.
Thus the scene is set for Armando Iannucci’s film version of his TV series The Thick Of It, and it is one of the funniest couple of hours British film comedy has produced for a very long time.
General Miller (James Gandolfini) is a dove, as is the UK’s Secretary of State for International Development, Simon Foster (Tom Hollander).
We meet poor Foster as he gets a going over from Malcom Tucker (Peter Capaldi), the PM’s attack dog press secretary (who is, of course, based on Alastair Campbell). He has been interviewed on radio about developing countries and dysentery when a question over whether war is on the horizon crops up: he makes the fatal mistake of saying it is “unforeseeable”, when Tucker clearly tells him the official line that it is neither foreseeable nor unforeseeable – the first example of the double-speak anyone with the faintest interest in contemporary politics will recognise and that this film mercilessly sends up.
Miller, Foster and US Secretary of State Karen Clarke (Mimi Kennedy) want to derail the surge towards war, but have a formidable opponent in the guise of Tucker. And so begins a Whitehall to Washington farce of sexed-up dossiers, threats to careers and a whole host of snivelling little mandarins, interns and press officers all jostling for position.
Tucker is perfect. His constant storming down corridors, telling ministers exactly what to do and his fruity language and devastating put-downs all make him so loathable you have to love him. Everyone gets a tongue lashing. Posh PR kid Toby gets it in every scene he is unlucky enough to grace – “shut it, Love Actually,” he is told when he opens his mouth, and then when he has the audacity to say “hello”, he is told to dispense with his “Oxbridge niceties”.
As for poor Foster, he is taken to pieces in every scene. Tucker wields the English language as a butcher handles a cleaver.
What emerges from Tucker’s ludicrous control freakery is the degree of Orwellian terminology used by politicians.
The War Committee is called “Future Planning Committee”, there is a dossier going round explaining why war is not inevitable called “PWPIPP”, which is then named “Debussy”, sexed up, re-moulded and suddenly becomes a paper saying exactly why war must be declared. It is all spin, smoke and mirrors stuff, and runs like a psychotic episode of Yes Minister, except we can see that the shift in power since the 1980s comedy has gone from the mandarins to the spin doctors.
At times this is actually very scary: you can’t help but worry whether the people who hold the reins of power really are such a bunch of total idiots.
And it really doesn’t matter if the relationships between press officers and politicians are not like that. It is also not important if the documents that the charge to war hinge on were or were not sexed up in the manner this flick suggests.
What is important is this film is a powerful satire that plays on our suspicions that this is exactly how Blair’s government worked. Whether it is factually correct in any way is not the point, Iannucci’s work mirrors our perceptions of what the inner cabal of New Labour was like in the run-up to the war in 2003, and for a topic that is really not funny, this is completely hilarious.
You are subjected to a remorseless battering of filthy one-liners. As you struggle to get your head above the dirty jokes and language, gasping for air, another cracking wave of hilarity crashes over you. With a strong cast – each actor is thoroughly believable, and so well observed – this has reached a level of political satire which makes it a bedfellow of such classics as Doctor Strangelove. Genius. |
 |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
