In the Loop (2009)

My 27 movie A-Z film-a-thon: day 10.

I am watching a different movie every day that I otherwise wouldn’t get to for a long while. One for each letter of the alphabet. What I have watched so far:

_13 Assassins (Takashi Miike, 2010) – 9/10

_All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson, 2023) – 7.5

_Blow Out (Brian De Palma, 1981) – 8.5

_Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2018) – 6.5

_Darby O’Gill and the Little People (Robert Stevenson, 1959) – 9 

_EO (Jerzy Skolinowski, 2022) – 5

_Fat City (John Huston, 1972) – 9

_Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone, 2018) – 8.5

_Happy as Lazarro (Alice Rohrwatcher, 2018) – 7

It’s been a little heavier than my usual tastes, so I thought I would try another comedy. I have been meaning to see this one for quite a long time, since it was out probably. I am not sure why I haven’t gotten to it.

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Day 10: I

In the Loop (2009)

Twice as interesting as The Office.

“I am making you pump Chad. Go on, it will be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.”
“No it won’t. It will be difficult. Difficult-lemon-difficult.”

I remember that line very well from the trailer 16 years ago. It’s a perfect sample of In the Loop’s rapid-fire dialogue—a very small Sundance film released in April 2009 that somehow made enough of an impression to earn a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

If you’ve seen The Death of Stalin, Armando Iannucci’s 2018 political meisterwerk, this is a more manic, modern-day version of that, with two parts The Office stirred in. Zach Woods plays a version of his character from The Office—“A.A.” Ron—but this came first.

The plot follows a dozen key players scrambling through a blitzkrieg of political turmoil after a British cabinet minister says that a war in the Middle East is “unforeseeable.” Of course, saying a war is unforeseeable means you don’t think it’s going to happen—but literally every single person in the movie takes it to mean the opposite. “Unforeseeable” means “foreseeable” in political-speak, apparently. That misreading becomes a darkly hilarious domino that drives much of the chaos.

The film presents situations that likely feel grounded in real-life. Mid-level politicians and their aides rush to put out fires while jockeying for influence and trying not to compromise either their image or their mission. Characters make “pros and cons lists for war” and struggle to appear busy without unraveling.

“I need to get out of here. Otherwise, I’ll end up staying in and watching a f___ing shark documentary and having a wank. Because I’m too scared to order porn on the hotel TV.”

The script is consistently engaging, with little details that return in clever, rewarding ways. I’d argue that the climax—if there is one—doesn’t feel like the movie was building toward it. But that doesn’t really matter. The rest of the film works so well, like a sharper, less cringe-inducing version of The Office. If your brain wants something fast-paced and packed with details worth piecing together, I very much recommend this one.

8/10