Though it has had an excellent run as the defining model for
political satire in the movies, it’s time to name a successor to Dr.
Strangelove.
Stanley Kubrick’s dark comedy—about the
escalation of the cold war through the death of language, reason, and
humanity—was the birth of modern irony as a way of understanding,
or at least mocking, power in films. Forty-five years on, Strangelove is
both institutionalized, which is a problem for comedy, and weirdly
quaint, which is a danger with topical satire. It remains prescient,
beautiful to look at, and even funny. But it’s the kind of funny that
someone a few seats away is always looking over to make sure you’re
laughing at. It was essential, even revolutionary in its time,
but the doctor needs a scion.
I hereby nominate In the Loop, a relentlessly funny, slightly
queasy film by godlike British comedy genius Armando Iannucci, about
which there is nothing quaint. Though Iannucci unmasks the hubris and misdirection that led to the war in Iraq, his satirical target runs much deeper.
The unmasking happens in a hurry. In the first five
minutes, Malcolm Tucker, the British prime minister’s director of
communications, hatchet man, and all-
purpose Machiavellian fixer
(Peter Capaldi, in a performance too good for Oscars; new awards should
be created to honor it), hears a junior MP stumblingly describe a U.S.
military intervention in the Middle East as “unforeseeable.” Not on
message.
Tucker shoots out of Number 10 Downing Street on a mission of containment and intimidation. While walking to the minister’s office, cell phone drawn like a six-gun, he corrects a journalist’s impressions about the quote (“you may have heard him say that, but he did not say that and that is a fact”), threatening to out him as an adulterer if he
doesn’t comply.
Moments later, he’s intimidating advisers and
demoralizing the minister himself, who is forbidden from making any
further media appearances until he learns to “toe the fucking
line.”
This is the first scene. It lasts about 10 minutes and sets up the
entire dynamic and tempo of the film: The government controls all
discourse in an effort to advance its preset agenda; its ministers are
clownish and hopeless; their advisers are arrogant sycophants, whose concern for their bosses’ jobs have only to do with fear for their own; and the citizens they serve are, on a good day,
afterthoughts.
Director of communications is the least ironic title in
history. Tucker prompts the cast of dimwit politicos with their
lines for the press, makes sure the press stays on message, and
generally stage-manages the whole government as if it were a piece of
theater. Which it obviously is. A farce, as it turns out.
This 10-minute scene also contains approximately 297 violent laughs
that I won’t spoil by repeating. Many of the jokes aren’t actually
jokes, simply expressions of linguistic rage formed by Tucker’s
hilariously versatile Scottish dialect, which rests gently, but explodes into lashing fury
(“If you don’t put me through to him, I’m gonna come down there and
lock you in a flotation tank and pump it full of sewage till you
drown!”) when met with any resistance.
Iannucci’s mostly handheld camera creates both a sense of heightened documentary realism and the ability
to jump through scenes in jagged shorthand, which allows the filmmaker to show just the funny bits of every exchange, and never allows the elaborate satirical context to feel cumbersome or overstuffed. Iraq is never mentioned by name,
but it’s obvious right away what we’re watching.
Nor is the film overly
concerned with belaboring the true natures of the powerful figures it
sets hurtling on the course to war. In the Loop takes the
venality, stupidity, vainglory, and ineffectiveness of nearly everyone
concerned (including the Americans who show up in the second scene,
which has about 326 additional laughs) utterly for granted. Their
uselessness is the given. The comedy, and the agony, comes from
watching it begin to dawn on them. It’s an absurdist view, but
not a detached one. A film like this could only be made by someone who
is enraged.
Iannucci isn’t advancing an argument for a superior ideology the way
inferior political satires like War, Inc. or Bob Roberts or Bowling for Columbine did. Instead, the film seems to argue
that ideology itself is utterly beside the point in a critique of contemporary government. For the powerful, the only doctrine that has
any meaning at all is the one that preserves the existing power structure.
For the filmmaker, the most effective idea is the funniest. Put them
together and you have a comedy that’s both smart and funny. And pissed (in the American sense). Often all at once. It’s nice to see a film by someone with some fight
left in him. This is, after all, the war room. 
“Stanley Kubrick’s dark comedy—about the escalation of the cold war through the death of language, reason, and humanity—was the birth of modern irony as a way of understanding, or at least mocking, power.”
Yeah, if you discount the fact that Catch-22 came out 3 years earlier. Fail.
Saw this at SIFF and loved it. I am miffed that it isn’t in wider distribution yet. Also, due to wanting to see more Malcolm Tucker rants, I looked up In The Thick of It DVD’s, they are only available in Region 2 format. Boo!
“Iannucci isn’t advancing an argument for a superior ideology the way inferior political satires like War, Inc. or Bob Roberts or Bowling for Columbine did. “
Aren’t the examples listed above documentary films? Don’t documentary films typical put forth an argument?
@3 Bob Roberts is so not a documentary. Neither is War, Inc. Criticism fail.
@3 Bob Roberts is so not a documentary. Neither is War, Inc. Criticism fail.
Grr, double post. Anyways, I really liked this review. Its one of The Stranger’s better ones, if it is a little overboard (and fanboyish) with the praise (though I haven’t seen the movie yet).
Yeah, this review is precisely why movie critics still matter. I’d never heard of this movie, but Netflix has and is now saving it for my queue when it’s available on DVD.
The problem with those other films mentioned (War Inc., etc) is that they miss the point of satire by applying their morality bumper sticker. Until I saw this film, I was convinced that the ghost of Terry Southern was dead for good. What Southern did in Strangelove, but also in The Magic Christian among others, was prove the DADAist point that if the world is brutal, absurdity is the only response.
The brilliance of this film is that it manages to be flat-out hilarious while still feeling within the realm of the real. Southern used absurdity to point out the idiotic pandering to power America fell to in the mid-century. This film uses absurdity to point out that even in our cynical age, those power structures still exist and the power they have is just as real, but it does it without outright mockery of the absurd people its filming.
Not all the comedy is in the words: the characterization of English, Scottish and Americans types is spot-on and hilarious. The inner-office politics well-laid, and just for the insults alone, this is worth the price of admission. As someone who saw the film, I’ll back Nelson’s remarks.
The problem with those other films mentioned (War Inc., etc) is that they miss the point of satire by applying their morality bumper sticker. Until I saw this film, I was convinced that the ghost of Terry Southern was dead for good. What Southern did in Strangelove, but also in The Magic Christian among others, was prove the DADAist point that if the world is brutal, absurdity is the only response.
The brilliance of this film is that it manages to be flat-out hilarious while still feeling within the realm of the real. Southern used absurdity to point out the idiotic pandering to power America fell to in the mid-century. This film uses absurdity to point out that even in our cynical age, those power structures still exist and the power they have is just as real, but it does it without outright mockery of the absurd people its filming.
Not all the comedy is in the words: the characterization of English, Scottish and Americans types is spot-on and hilarious. The inner-office politics well-laid, and just for the insults alone, this is worth the price of admission. As someone who saw the film, I’ll back Nelson’s remarks.
This was an amazingly funny movie.
Oh, and if you don’t like the Scottish jokes, I’ll rip your head off and spit down your throat before I feed it to a meat grinder and serve it up to some weasels.
(helps if you’ve seen the movie to get the above)
I have to agree with #7; I would never have heard of this if not for the review here, and by the sounds of it, I’ll love this. Thank you, Sean.
I just came from seeing it, and indeed it was brilliant. The only thing that dulls the experience a bit is the crawling humiliation that comes over you when you remember that the people who actually hold power over us are really this venal and stupid.
<>
I don’t get this part. “Quaint”?? Hardly. Maybe because it doesn’t have swear words and people don’t think a movie is an “adult” one w/o them? And it doesn’t have the fast paced editing that the youngsters like. Maybe that makes it “quaint.” Oooh, black and white too. Quaint. And I don’t understand the “But it’s the kind of funny…” line. What’s Sean talking about? Where does he see his movies that people are “always looking over”?
I enjoyed Loop very much. I’ve seen it twice. But I don’t think it has the intelligence of Strangelove. Didn’t like the faux documentary style too w/the oddly moving camera, etc. (real documentarians I know cringe when they see that as they work very hard to ensure the camera doesn’t do that). I’d certainly recommend Loop, in fact I already have. But it’s no Strangelove. Not even close.
I loved this movie. Largely, though, I’m PISSED OFF at an incidence of parallel thinking; I came up with and used the Marie Antoinette / “let them eat cock” line myself in a pilot teleplay that I wrote. I have to delete it, now, because the rule in comedy is that if someone more famous than you uses the same joke, you have to lose yours.
So I don’t care how great his movie is. Sucks to his limey asmar.
Sean Nelson is a hack. Using “godlike” to mean “really talented” is the type of pretentiousness that’s barely tolerable from a high schooler, and is completely embarrassing coming from an adult. This is the same writer who once referred to The Beatles as “the four-headed Shakespeare of rock and roll”. Fucking hack.
yawn. this was a boring movie. don’t believe the hype.
You can watch this On Demand from Comcast right now for $6.99