Netflix Pick: In the Loop
Your weekly Netflix pick looks all the way back to the year 2009. Finally, one that isn’t a Netflix original! I guess a streaming platform producing original content worth recommending week after week is far from a problem. Anyway, enough rambling. In the Loop is your So Wizard recommended much watch of the week.
In the Loop is a relatively short but incredibly sharp political satire about the American and British governments getting together to discuss the war in the Middle East. With the stake of much of the world in the balance the representatives of both countries are too small and petty to put aside personal rivalries and career desires to do the right thing. Going in with different intentions and goals the all star cast of political morons come up with some unintentionally (story wise) hilarious one liners and situations.
I’ll admit, I had a hard time keeping up with the characters names. The movie isn’t at all confusing but the sharp tongued dialogue is delivered at a machine gun pace rivaled only by last year’s Deadpool. The insults, floundering, tirades, and political jargon coming at you a thousand miles a minute makes a movie that follows stuffy men in suits sitting in rooms feel genuinely exciting.
Shot like a brilliant love child of The Office and Veep, even though In The Loop preceded both, it’s a great pop culture reference point. It’s clear to see where the two (three counting different versions) series got their inspiration. If you need more similes made it’s a raunchier Newsroom. Being compared to the Newsroom isn’t just in the way it’s made. In the Loop is a film for fans of dialogue, much like anything Sorkin writes. The movie could practically work just as well as a radio drama the dialogue and deliveries are so good.
Both series even took actors from In the Loop and gave them similar roles. Type Casting isn’t always a bad thing. If it works, it works. The cast doesn’t have a weak link. Every actor and actress is firing on all cylinders. An extra special shout out needs to be made to Peter Capaldi for stealing every scene his sneering Malcolm Tucker walked through.
Through the hilarity, through the insults, and through the piercing dialogue a whole lot of truth shows in exquisite detail. I’d imagine Government meetings aren’t quite so entertaining but condensing the events and allowing people to lift their filters leave us with In the Loop. A comedy that is more truth than anything you’ll find on your local affiliate when it comes to world politics.
