The disc: In The Loop

The details: Great, shrieking comic invective seems to have gone out of style, except on cable news shows, and there it’s unintentionally funny. But In the Loop (IFC) brings back welcome memories of Network and other satirical Paddy Chayefsky movies. Little of the dialogue can be reprinted, but suffice it to say that most of it derives from Peter Capaldi as a spectacularly foul-mouthed spokesman for an unseen English prime minister.

The plot: There’s a particularly ridiculous and arbitrary war about to happen in the Middle East. The prime minister is OK with it, but decidedly not OK when a hapless, low-level cabinet minister blurts out the truth on television. The entire English political establishment swings into preventative action as hearings take place involving James Gandolfini as an American general, Anna Chlumsky as an American senatorial staffer and other assorted characters, all desperate with flop sweat.

Although the middle of the film has a few dead spots, there were times when I had to stop the DVD to get my breath from laughing too hard, especially when Capaldi and Gandolfini face off and trade soul-shattering insults. “Have you ever actually killed anyone?” inquires Capaldi of the increasingly immense Gandolfini. “Falling asleep on top of them doesn’t count.”
It took five writers, including director Armando Ianucci, to come up with the script, but I’m not complaining because it hangs together comically if not always dramatically, and ends with an appropriately scabrous flourish of cynicism.