Thursday, December 29, 2011

Capsule Review: In the Loop (2009)

Armando Iannucci has been creating hilarious, innovative comedy for decades now in television series' like THE DAY TODAY and I'M ALAN PARTRIDGE, but his most impressive accomplishment has been his uproarious satirical series THE THICK OF IT. The choice to make a feature film adaptation/continuation of the series could have been disastrous, but despite adding a few American names and expanding the scope to cover global tensions (as opposed to the UK-centric focus of the show) the core brilliance - exemplified by Peter Capaldi's hilariously foul-mouthed "enforcer" Malcolm Tucker - is fully intact. In fact, the increased resources make for some of the darkest political comedy this side of DR. STRANGELOVE. The screenplay was rightfully Oscar nominated, but the performers deserve plenty of credit for being able to spit out the wonderful dialogue so convincingly. Hilariously brilliant.

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