Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I watched the entire movie thinking, "Man, this reminds me a lot of Veep." The credits rolled and I saw who directed it, and felt kind of goofy because I saw Armando Iannucci's name at the beginning, but only put it together at the very end of the film. However, I love Armando's writing so much, that I have to pick that aspect of the film to talk about.What makes In the Loop and Veep so great to me isn't just the names involved (wonderful actors like James Gandolfini in In the Loop and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Veep), it's the incredibly sharp nature of the dialogue. It is a film that is about incredibly serious subjects, like war and its surrounding politics, but it's a film that never takes itself too seriously. That is due to the writing of Iannucci, Simon Blackwell, and others - as well as improvisation by the actors and actresses, I'm sure. The dialogue riddled with wonderfully creative insults and jabs at the self-importance many politicians carry around. The dialogue is so unfiltered, and I think that's part of what I find so appealing about both In the Loop and Veep. The writers give their characters free reign to throw jabs at each other at all times, which brings a certain irony to serious moments as well as serving as a source of levity.Moving forward from Veep and In the Loop, I want to see if Armando might do with a script that takes him away from the political spectrum. While we have him here though, we better cherish him because In the Loop is definitely worth your time as one of the best contemporary political satires.

Of course this is a parody on Blair and the lies that started the second Iraq war. But don't believe the 'clever' or 'fun' reviews.In the loop doesn't contain two jokes. The so called 'fun' is in people bullying, shouting at and demeaning other people. It is the same kind of fun you get at a bullfight or cockfight. No character is explained. You have to believe that either everybody is very stupid and/or cowardly or an utter bully. Nobody is normal or has morals (maybe there's one exception. If you don't like this review please go f*ck your self. And if you don't like my language, definitely don't watch this movie (or go and watch and you'll see why.

I almost always finish a movie once I start it, but I gave up on this after less than 30 minutes. I love witty, intellectual, satirical British stuff and that is what I was expecting, but for two specific reasons, I didn't stick around. The first is a very personal reason--I am certain that the unbelievably abusive and absurdly foul-mouthed British minister was inspired by our own lovely Rahm Emanuel, and even though politically I'm a bit on the left, I detest Emanuel. I couldn't bear to watch nearly 2 hours of anybody reminding me so much of him, even if it makes him look like the nasty, narcissistic, power-hungry jerk he is. (Yeah, I really, don't like him.) Second, the swearing in this film is ridiculous and distracting. Note how many people comment on this. I could care less about foul language---frankly, it doesn't bother me at all--but this script seem to be the product of a bunch of writers competing to see who could introduce the most expletives into the film, and, after they were done, they passed the script along for final polishing to an editor with Tourettes. I'm sure that there was some artistic point to this, or maybe they thought they were being sophisticated or realistic or I don't know what, but I just found it to be extraordinarily annoying. You're probably thinking that I'm a bit of a prude, so I feel obligated to point out that after I gave up on this, I watched an excellent British gangster film which was extremely liberal with foul language; however, in this case, it seemed completely appropriate contextually. I'm so used to extreme swearing that I hardly notice it, and I thought all of the other reviewers were probably just a bunch of uptight old women, until I listened to it myself. I would actually encourage people to start this movie, just to see if they agree that this bizarrely excessive foul-mouthed script plays as badly as I think it does and immensely detracts from the story they are trying to tell, or if I'm just not hip enough.

Aside from the fact that for reasons of continuity/plausibility several of the supporting characters from DoSAC had to be given slightly altered identities so they could play out a scenario on the international stage, this is very much part and parcel of the Thick Of It canon and of an equal level of excellence. There's an added dimension of gravity and sadness to it as rather than the usual DoSAC trivia the usual gang of idiots is dealing with the circumstances leading up to the Blair administration's facilitating the Bush administration's phony rationale for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and that act of treachery is personified by the reckless, bumbling actions of Toby/Ollie and the scheming Malcolm Tucker, who as never before or after is shown as the hustling Machiavellian pawn of more powerful players. It's an important element in the continuity of the TV series as it explains why Ollie and Malcolm get such a savage comeuppance in the ensuing fourth series.