You know a lot of time has passed when the best comedy of 2009 is about the run-up to the Iraq war. Now, to be fair, the debut film from BBC comedy veteran Armando Iannucci isn’t specifically about the U.S. invasion. Neither Bush nor Blair are ever mentioned by name, and Iraq isn’t, either. It’s just ‘the war’. But, the lines that Iannucci and his team of writers have crafted are effectively wide enough to scribble in your own conclusions. The comedy doesn’t come from the idea of war, per se. It’s about the sort of political game-playing, media manipulation and general corruption that go on to insure that the desired outcome, in this case the war, goes on despite all the evidence to the contrary. It’s also one of the most delightfully, intricately profane scripts since the last days of ‘Deadwood‘.
As the film begins, the talk of an American invasion is in the air in England, where there is much discussion as to what sort of support the British should provide. An obscure British cabinet minister, Simon Foster (a dithering Tom Hollander), is interviewed by the BBC on the inevitability of war. His comment that war is ‘unforeseeable’ is immediately leapt upon by the press and government flacks alike, with the most fearsome being the Senior Press Officer Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), a dyspeptic dispensary of vitriol who begs to differ with Foster. The government is for the war, although nobody is really supposed to know this. Tucker’s real anger with Foster is not only that he said something, but also that he expressed an opinion at all. The rapid-fire abuse he lets loose on Foster and his assistants is astonishing, not only for its violence, but the verbal dexterity. Any viewer with even a rudimentary appreciation for language can’t help but applaud the non-stop venting of spleen that Tucker, and others, display throughout the film. It’s inspired.
Somehow, Foster is sent to the U.S., where he is to represent the government at a ‘war committee’ (although it’s never officially called that) at the Pentagon. There, he and his assistant Toby (Chris Addison) meet up with General George Miller (James Gandolfini), Asst. Secretary of Diplomacy Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy), and Clark’s assistant Liza (Anna Chlumsky), all of whom are against the idea of an invasion. They all hope to enlist Foster in their campaign against the invasion, while State Department higher-up Linton Barwick (David Rasche, as a dead ringer for Donald Rumsfeld) has taken some meaningless comment by Foster as an inspirational message in favor of the war.
All of the double-dealings, shenanigans, backstabbing and romantic entanglements are too rich to detail any further. Anybody who has ever had a less than savory thought about the way that government works should find much to enjoy here. The cast, made up of a crack number of character actors, are uniformly excellent, and comparisons could be made to the best of the Christopher Guest ‘mockumentary’ films in the way that they all work so well together. Gandolfini proves to be an adept comedian, Rasche perfects the unctuous nature of career politicians, and a cameo from Steve Coogan, as a man back home who has his own issues with Foster, is a welcome highlight. But the real star is Capaldi, who is given free reign as an uncontrolled id run amuck. His verbal sparring with nearly every member of the cast is like watching a champion prizefighter toying with a prelim bum. They all get their punches in, but in the end, he, and the film, win by a knockout. – [DVD]
Comedy
Not Rated
DVD Release Date: 1/12/10
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