All in all, it seems as though the trailer for this BBC-backed production was trying to emulate the late/great Kubrick, with zany mismatched bits of dialogue building up to a parade of non-sequiturs set to the tune of the William Tell overture. Indeed, the entire movie seems as though it were trying to impress the memory of such films as “Dr. Strangelove” upon us, vying for a spot up there with the resting virtuoso by waving it’s arms high up in the air as it screams “Hey, you! That’s right, you! Look at us, ya wanker!” Though its ambition and sophistication might be lauded, its execution and rhetoric should not be.
The style is something out of Ricky Gervais’s “Office” and the subject matter generally revolves around the hapless bumbling(s) of the Minister of International Development Simon Foster (though you might know him as Lord Cutler Beckett from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise). So when the bad juju hits for the Prime Minister's PR department regarding a fumbled sound bite regarding a possible upcoming war in the Middle East, Foster and his closest associates unwittingly get themselves tangled up in the international agendas of euphemistic war committees, political animals and an unruly local constituency, not to mention a mob of brown-nosers for a bit of color.
Roughly speaking, the first three fourths of the movie are all well and good, full of fanatically coarse banter and wit, but it gets tired when they go green and start recycling their gags. And that’s when you start really wondering how funny it actually is to see someone screaming profanities for almost two straight hours, wondering how big that vein in the side of Peter Capaldi’s head can actually get. Maybe Robin Williams can pull that sort of thing off but “In the Loop” sadly doesn’t. Or at the very least it fails to sustain my interest up to the finish line. To add insult to injury the final quarter shifts to a sudden undesirable seriousness.
There’s a smug sense of self-satisfaction with the ending and I’m hard-pressed not to just get it out in the open. More than some are bound to agree with what it’s trying to say about our current bureaucratic atmosphere, but there’s a mosquito-like quality to its pessimism that's hard to ignore. Wrapping in an “I told you so” fashion, its bitterness merely masquerades as comedy at the worst of times. As is inescapable with all movies that deal directly in the political arena, filmmakers should be ready to deal with both supremely positive and acutely hostile reactions. Films of a lesser caliber tend to show these weaknesses when they find themselves before a sometimes skeptical public. And when such a movie fails to disguise its own idealism under believable and balanced dramatic garments (because that’s all comedy is at bottom: disguised drama), the finished product looks loose at the seams; and something that should have been sleek, knowing, funny and form-fitting turns out to be nothing more than an over-sized piece of fabric, attesting to the ultimate carelessness on behalf of its designer.
That’s why satires like “Strangelove” succeed. The satire is biting but there’s a respect for the process and the characters’ logic (albeit twisted) behind it. In short, there’s a jauntiness that does not become loathsome of those whom it barbeques. Cynical perhaps. But never loathsome. It’s a lesson that few hot-headed filmmakers or actors have managed to appreciate in the last few decades and we’re all the worse for it.
Consume if: A.) You enjoy the unsettling feeling that collusion is always right around the corner. B.) You want to hear James Gandolfini say the words “meat puppet” C.) You find cursing Scotsmen hilarious for no other reason than their accent.
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