FILM: A little out of The Loop

In The Loop is Armando Iannucci’s film version of the TV series The Thick Of It, and it isn’t half bad. TV moving to film is a tricky business – Primeval seems better suited – and the cast are much the same here, although most of the characters have different names (Chris Addison’s snivelling Ollie becomes Toby, but has much the same character arc) except for Peter Capaldi’s iconic, Campbell-esque Malcolm Tucker and his Celtic henchman. It’s like political satire done as rep, The Thick Of It: Remixed with a few extra spices. There’s a point in that about politics as a rolling, unstoppable, faceless and venal machine – one amply made in the end credits.

The film is split between the US and Britain and concerns a spinball rolling into war, and it’s in the latter land where it feels more sure of itself (look out for My Girl’s Anna Chlumsky in the US), where the main focus is often the prodigious swearing of Tucker and the effect this has on those around him. Clever swearing is an art form all of its own, but after a while it’s not enough, and some lines feel as if they’d be better written down. After a point the film becomes a receptacle for the audience to vent their frustrations over politicians, rather than a film in itself. All the swearing is just a funnel for anger. This blunts the satire and it turns it into more of a tool than a finished work, albeit a very clever one. Still, if this exposure gets more people to see the TV series then it’s no bad thing – see also Play, State Of.

Caught in the loop – can politics outpace political satire?

In a week still reeling from government scandals related to pornography, money, fiddling (some might call it fraud) and the dehumanising bowels of political PR, Armando Iannucci must have divided feelings. From one perspective, it’s great background for the release of his new movie In The Loop, a caustic political satire spun out of the TV series The Thick Of It (in cinemas this Friday). The most recent scandal even features a Celtic-sounding spinmeister on the way out – and one who’s a clear fifteen years younger than the fictional Malcolm Tucker.

On the other hand, it illustrates the difficulty of staying ‘ahead of the game’ when it comes to satire. Given the lead times in film, reality can more easily outpace it than it can television, radio, print and the internet (in decreasing order). Films such as Iannucci’s can look like documentaries alarmingly quickly – perhaps we should just install a surprise live feed from No 10 war room to an offshoot of the BBC Parliament channel, and have done it with it? Now that would be a public service.

(Beautifully, the In The Loop blog does its best to keep up with current affairs.)

[Also see: In The Loop film review.]