In the Loop: Critic Reviews

Consider the movie an offspring of the great 1980s BBC screwball political comedy series Yes Minister. And consider it a welcome oasis of script literacy in a summer of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

While In the Loop is a highly disciplined inquiry into a very serious subject, it is also, line by filthy line, scene by chaotic scene, by far the funniest big-screen satire in recent memory.

The first really satisfying, really fearless dramatic assault on the scandal of Iraq.

If you can get past its relentless quality, In the Loop is a blisteringly funny skewering of the venal side of politics.

Film should do more than television. In the Loop is tremendous fun at times, especially in its vicious power plays and betrayals.

[It's] that rare film utterly without heroes; instead, it amasses a group of boobs, users, and charlatans on both sides of the Atlantic and asks us to recognize our duly elected and appointed officials. You'll laugh until you bleed, or vice versa.

Though hilarious, In the Loop is also a horror movie, its lacerating satire constantly reminding us of the all-too-real consequences of distorted, manipulated, and vitiated language.

One of the sharpest satires in years.

In the Loop is a confusingly plotted satire -- plan on being out of the loop -- that starts off at such a frantic pace and at so high a pitch that it really doesn't have anywhere to go.

By the end of the film, you just want to get away from these people.

The film plays as if flaming chunks of The Office crash-landed simultaneously onto the sets of Yes, Minister and The West Wing.

This enormously witty satire follows a British diplomatic staff as they fly to Washington to confer with their U.S. counterparts, who are secretly ginning up an invasion of the Middle East.

A scabrously funny look at the cutthroat game of statecraft.

In the Loop is one of the best political comedies since the invention of the sprocket hole.

Filled with the sort of pent-up vitriolic humor that Brits specialize in, it's one of those films that keep you laughing even as you realize how awfully close to the truth it likely is.

It's fantastic stuff, so over-the-top, so scabrous, so bitterly brilliant that you have to assume that, on some level, it rings true.

In the Loop is certainly the smartest and funniest movie inspired by the Iraq war.

The film, while often very funny, is so relentlessly savage it could destroy whatever shred of respect you may still retain for politicians and that flogged horse called democracy.

The brainchild of British director Armando Iannucci, it takes on the politicians at their own dirty game, daring to fictionally embellish the tawdry facts, to out-spin the spin doctors.

The jagged rhythms of the movie's dialogue are entertaining in themselves, and it's fun to watch the actors keep their lines spinning and bouncing off each other.

The first successful satire inspired by the Iraq war comes not from the country that started it, but from the sceptered isle that was our most important ally.

Painfully funny satire of British and American bureaucrats in the days leading up to the Iraq War.

A comedy that finally manages to satirize the war successfully.

In the Loop deserves to be a sleeper hit. The whole cast is stellar. And it proves that smart and funny can exist in the same movie, even in summer.