As Seen on TV: In The Loop (Dir Armando Iannucci, 1h45m, 2009)

British TV is no stranger to the cinematic outing. These adventures, in which television series head to the multiplex, is somewhat of a mixed bag: for every Bean and Borat there is Kevin and Perry Go Large, The Nan Movie, and seemingly infinite film excursions (most of which inevitably seem to be themed around continental holidays from the familiar sitcom locations) for creaky old 1970s television series. This all leads to the nadir of which was, is, and ever shall be, Holiday on the Buses, the fifth, final, mostachio'd, and most punctual horseman of the Apocalypse. 

Fortunately, through all of this comes the familiar figure of television's great satirist, Armando Iannucci, and a cinematic outing for his most politically pointed work, The Thick of It (2005-2012), in the form of In the Loop, loosely adapting the series around a thinly fictionalised version of the build-up to the Iraq War. For those who haven't had the pleasure of watching, the series follows the exploits of a single government department, over which looms the malevolent figure of Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi, in the role that would make him a household name), a foul mouthed Machiavel political fixer, a barely fictionalised (and thus, decidedly more likeable) riff on Blairite spin doctor Alistair Campbell. 

The cinematic incarnation, retaining only Tucker and fellow political hatchetman Jamie McDonald (an unnerving Paul Higgins), gets down to business quickly, intercutting its opening credits with introductions of much of its main cast, including hapless MP, Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) already under pressure after his flippant comments on a brewing conflict in the Middle East attract attention from hawkish figures in the US Government, and newly arriving special Advisor, Toby Wright (Chris Addison) who soon finds himself out of his depth.

From here, we are introduced to the various factions in the US Government, from the warmongering Linton Barwick (perhaps the best example of Iannucci taking bit-part actors with dozens of credits to their name and getting the most out of them) against which the more dove-ish faction, led by Karen Clark (Suzy Kennedy), gather around their report, "PWPPIP", the film's central MacGuffin, written by her aide, Liza Weld (Anna Chlumsky, who would play a similar role in Iannucci's subsequent, America-set series,Veep). 

With Foster further exacerbating the situation with the Americans by further fumbles after a meeting between the British and Americans, so he, Toby and Tucker are dispatched to the United States as representatives of the United Kingdom, thus proving that not even a multi-BAFTA award winning show is safe from the inexorable pull of the "The Series Goes Abroad" movie. Here, our intrepid trio are parachuted into the schism between the factions in the US Government: Barwick has pinpointed the inadvertent sound-bite from Foster of the "mountain of conflict", using this banal statement to fan the US (and indeed its allies, including the UK) into war, surrounded by a small army of alarmingly young assistants and aides, a senior member of whom later comes in for a Tucker tongue lashing. 

Against this are ranked Clark, and the doveish faction of the administration, including Army head, Lt Gen George Miller (a scene-stealing, and physically imposing James Gandolfini), whose first appearance is a bleakly comic scene at a party where the duo sneak into a child's bedroom to discuss the build up to war. Never has a "Speak n Spell" delivered a bleaker, funnier, punchline. Into this, the British contingent, with the exception of Tucker, seem ill prepared and blunder themselves deeper and deeper. This is not helped by the brewing, and decidedly parochial against this world-changing events, furore over a neighbour's wall, (a brief, brilliant cameo by Iannucci's long-time collaborator, Steve Coogan) or Toby sleeping with Weld, leading to a subplot where he later attempts to convince his ex-girlfriend to leak PWPPIP. 

Tucker, ever the shadowy arbitrator of plans, manages to keep his own agenda running, even as he himself has to manage Foster, Barwick, and later proceedings at the UN, leading to a truly ferocious scene in which both he and fellow fixer McDonald drive events on both sides of the Atlantic. This is not to mention the nigh constant, and often impressively constructed profanity, largely from Capaldi, that punctuates the film. If anything cemented the character as one of the great anti-heroes of television, it is this cinematic outing, where many of the best lines, and best scenes, are those involving Malcolm Tucker. 

At its centre, In the Loop, much like its television counterpart, is at once darkly, occasionally grimly, funny, and a spotlight shone into the corners of power; its fly on the wall style, shot, like the series, on handheld camera belies its reflecting of fact, of how the corridors of power actually work. Nowhere is this more salient than In the Loop; it is not only a comic tour-de-force, but a deeply salient work, the  then recent Iraq War seen through a cinematic filter of that great Marx quote of "First as tragedy, then as farce"; what a farce it is. 

Rating: Highly Recommended

In the Loop is available via Apple TV and on DVD from ‎ StudioCanal

Next week and indeed next month, to films that make us scream-with laughter-beginning with Mel Brooks' Young Frankstein.