*To be recited in a Scottish accent.
There is nothing clever or funny about swearing, as my dear old mum used to say. But then she had never seen “In the Loop”, which features vast quantities of swearing and is both clever and funny.
First there was “The Thick of It”, a British TV series which was a sublime blend of The Office and Yes, Minister; a sort of “Fuck You, Minister”. The subject was an inept government minister played by Chris Langham, who spends his time avoiding the press and pleasing his boss, whilst being constantly hounded and abused by the party communications director played by Peter Capaldi.
Wonderful stuff and well worth a download. There are not many episodes and it looked like the whole venture would die once Chris Langham was convicted of child pornography offences. But now there is “In the Loop”.
The premise is similar. A useless government minister being serially abused and belittled by Peter Capaldi’s character. But we are in the time just before the Iraq war and the Americans are involved, which gives Capaldi the chance to abuse people on both sides of the water, including the British Ambassador to the United Nations (“Just fucking do it! Otherwise you’ll find yourself in some medieval war zone in the Caucasus with your arse in the air, trying to persuade a group of men in balaclavas that sustained sexual violence is not the fucking way forward!”).
The story is minimal. Lies, deceit, arse-covering and invented excuses to go to war; just like the real thing, plus a side story of a collapsing wall in a Northamptonshire garden which was probably slight less instrumental in the actual Iraq war preparations than the story portrays.
Actually the storyline is pretty irrelevant, it’s the characters, and the script, that make this such great entertainment. Each one is ghastly in their own little way, and beautifully played by all. But it is the raging Capaldi that dominates the screen. There is something biting and acerbic about the Scottish accent and every line is delivered with perfectly timed Glaswegian venom.
Others worthy of special mention are Steve Coogan as the wild-eyed owner of the collapsing wall, and James Gandolfini as a U.S. General, sitting with a beeping child’s computer working out how many troops he has available (“Twelve thousand troops. But that’s not enough. That’s the amount that are going to die. And at the end of a war you need some soldiers left, really, or else it looks like you’ve lost”).
Anyway, don’t take my word for it. The Christian Science Monitor said: “In The Loop is hands down the funniest movie I’ve seen all year and also the smartest”. See, they didn’t even complain about all the swearing, and they’re Christians.
Go see it, or better still download it; you will want to watch it more than once.
Fuckety-bye-bye then!
Comments 🔗
2009-07-31| Pete saysNever heard of it, but thanks for the reccommendation. I am currently rushing out to my local shop to buy a legal copy at about 60kB/s. I have a slow car!
2009-08-02| Pete saysSpike; I’ve just watched my ‘ahem’ “legal copy”, and I can see why you rate the film so much. It’s both well made and hilarious. You plugged “In Bruges” a while back in a different post, a film I had already enjoyed. I reckoned that if you liked that one then your taste was OK. Thanks for the heads-up. I may not have heard of it otherwise. To everyone else out there with a sense of humour - WATCH IT!
2009-08-03| Spike saysJudy’s lubricated horse cock aside, glad you liked it.
Have you tried “Burn After Reading”?
2009-08-03| Pete saysYes. Parted with 100B for that one a while back!