There was a prevailing sentiment in the months preceding the inauguration of Barack Obama that history had finally reached its terminal point. The charismatic, biracial leader of the world’s only superpower was poised to resolve his nation’s domestic grievances and its international entanglements, ushering in a new era of eternal peace and unprecedented prosperity. In those halcyon days of messianic optimism, events like the still ongoing carnage in Iraq were beginning to be viewed less as a source of profound outrage and more as a source of embarrassment—an unhappy episode that was about to be consigned to history books and treated, with a certain distance, through satirical comedy. It is against this specific backdrop that Armando Iannucci’s 2009 film In the Loop premiered at Sundance shortly before the actual inauguration, capturing a fleeting moment where the Iraq War was viewed not as a tragedy, but as a punchline.
The film serves as the cinematic spin-off of BBC’s acclaimed and acerbic comedy series The Thick of It, which itself satirised the inner workings of the British government between 2005 and 2012. The element that binds the movie to its television predecessor is the indomitable figure of Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi). Tucker is the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications, a foul-mouthed, aggressively Scottish enforcer whose primary function is to keep the ministers and the ruling party’s members of Parliament in line through intimidation, profanity, and sheer will.
In the Loop’s plot deals with an international crisis that forces Tucker to deploy these skills to defuse a potential political disaster. The British Prime Minister and the US President have jointly decided to invade an unnamed Middle Eastern country. As the case for war is being formulated for the court of world opinion and UN Security Council members are aggressively lobbied to approve a resolution via a secret war committee, an unforeseen event threatens to undermine the “Special Relationship”.
The crisis begins when Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), the Minister for International Development, during a BBC radio interview fumbles a question and describes the upcoming war as “unforeseeable.” The Prime Minister, displeased with what he perceives as a lack of unity and competence in his government, dispatches Tucker to rein in Foster. Simultaneously, Suzy (Olivia Poulet), a junior official in the Foreign Office who opposes the war, arranges Foster’s invitation to a joint US-UK policy conference in Washington, D.C., where the actual decisions regarding the conflict are to be formulated. Foster arrives in America accompanied by his newly appointed special advisor and Suzy’s boyfriend, the put-upon Toby Wright (Chris Adosn), but he is soon shadowed by Tucker, who is tasked with ensuring he makes no further gaffes.
Once in Washington, the film shifts focus to the fissures in the US administration. The opposition to the war is centred largely around Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy), the Assistant Secretary of State, and Lieutenant General George Miller (James Gandolfini), who is deeply concerned about the lack of manpower required for the operation. Clark battles her bitter rival, the hawkish Assistant Secretary of State Linton Berwick (David Rasche), who is determined to push the war through. In a pivotal subplot, Clark’s aide, Liza Weld (Anna Chlumsky), begins a relationship with Toby, inadvertently providing an opening for the anti-war faction to sabotage Berwick’s secret committee.
In the Loop can be seen as an attempt to exorcise the ghost of the Iraq War by presenting a veiled reconstruction of George W. Bush’s and Tony Blair’s campaign to gather diplomatic and propaganda support. The references are unmistakable, and the large-than-life character of Malcolm Tucker is widely recognised as a stand-in for the real-life figure of Blair’s flamboyant, foul-mouthed Scottish enforcer, Alastair Campbell. The film recreates the atmosphere of those pre-war days with a precision that is both illuminating and horrifying, capturing the way entrenched mid-level bureaucrats form long-term policies while hapless and incompetent elected officials are manipulated for their convenience.
Iannucci directs the film in a very fashionable, moving camera style that mimics a semi-documentary approach. This has led many critics to compare it to Rob Reiner’s mockumentary masterpiece This Is The Spinal Tap and, more significantly, Stanley Kubrick’s legendary black comedy Dr. Strangelove. However, these comparisons often do more harm than good to the film’s perception; they create expectations of a certain kind of rhythm and camaraderie that In the Loop does not always fulfil. As a result, while the film elicits enthusiasm from critics during its premiere, it fails to generate the same level of widespread audience engagement as those cinematic touchstones.
The film more-or-less correctly reconstructs the background of one of the most catastrophic policy blunders of the 21st century and identifies one of its sources in the labyrinthine bureaucracy that drives foreign policy. Yet, its main problem is a lack of focus, as Iannucci appears at odds with himself regarding whether to assault Washington or the more familiar world of dysfunctional British politics. Consequently, large segments of the runtime are dedicated to the constituent surgery practice of British MPs, including Foster himself. We are treated to lengthy sequences involving Foster’s constituent, Paul Michelson (Steve Coogan), who complains about a wall collapsing into his garden—a subplot that feels increasingly disconnected from the high-stakes geopolitical drama unfolding elsewhere.
What goes on in Washington is considerably more interesting, offering a glimpse into the workings of a polarised administration, but the film grants us only fleeting access to this world. The writing for Karen Clark is rather poor, rendering her a flat character compared to the men surrounding her. Meanwhile, the larger-than-life James Gandolfini, as General Miller, easily overshadows everyone else, including Capaldi’s Tucker. Miller is a general who is less bellicose than the hawkish civilians; he is a weary realist who understands the grim reality of the operation, making him the film’s most compelling figure. The American side of the story is dominated by his presence, leaving the political sparring between Clark and Berwick feeling somewhat secondary and underdeveloped.
Furthermore, the film suffers from a lack of sympathetic characters. Even when the anti-war faction attempts to do the right thing—such as leaking material hoping to stop millions from dying—they are driven by very selfish and personal reasons rather than altruism. The incompetence of the politicians is a source of comedy, but the film offers no comfort in the form of moral clarity. The characters are not just flawed; they are essentially uncaring, which makes the eventual march toward war feel less like a political tragedy and more like a natural consequence of a system designed for its own perpetuation.
Despite its critical acclaim and numerous awards, including nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards and wins at the British Independent Film Awards and British Comedy Awards, In the Loop had only modest commercial success. This suggests that its politics were perhaps a little too complicated for the general audience, who might have found the rapid-fire dialogue and specific bureaucratic in-fighting less accessible than the broader strokes of a standard satire.
Armando Iannucci, however, was undeniably impressed by the potential of this material, and the film served as a foundational precursor to his long-running political satire series Veep for HBO. Several key cast members, including Anna Chlumsky, Chris Addison, and David Rasche, went on to portray characters in that series, effectively transplanting the rapid-fire, profane style of British political satire to an American context.
Ultimately, In the Loop is a film that looked like relatively harmless satire during its premiere in 2009, but upon retrospective viewing, it looks much less pleasant and makes the audience bitter. In the intervening years, the world has become a much uglier and more dangerous place, and the machinations of the corridors of power in recent years have looked beyond even Iannucci’s wildest imagination. The film no longer feels like a clever comedy about an embarrassing past mistake, but rather a prophetic document about the inevitable, often absurd, and devastating nature of political decision-making.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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