In The Loop

Edmund Burke never really wrote "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing," but it's a good line nonetheless. It's also not accurate. Good men doing nothing is integral to the triumph of evil, but it's certainly not all that's necessary. After all, how many "good men," or good women for that matter, are there, really? Not enough to tip the evil/good balance. No, the real key to evil winning the day is the active collaboration of mediocre people. The genuinely malevolent are as rare as the unfailingly virtuous. Most folks are weak-willed and capable of superhuman rationalization in justifying selfish behavior. The run-up to the Iraq war is an instructive example of the phenomenon. There were probably only a handful of truly evil warmongers in the U.S. government. Their efforts were made effective by the busy-bee complicity of legions of government and media folks, none of whom probably had a hard-on for war, but all of whom knew that the success of their careers depended on the success of the war.

British comedian/filmmaker Armando Iannucci dissects this dynamic brilliantly with In The Loop. Tom Hollander stars as an obscure British cabinet minister who, after making a gaffe during a radio interview, becomes a pawn in the battle between bureaucrats seeking to expedite an Anglo-American invasion in the Middle East and bureaucrats trying to slow the march to war. A foul-mouthed Scottish mouthpiece played with ferocious relish by Peter Capaldi, is trying to grease the war skids on behalf of the Prime Minister. Meanwhile a State Department drone played by Mimi Kennedy and James Gandolfini's peacenik Pentagon general try to enlist Hollander in their effort to publicize the powerful case against invasion. The dialogue is a rapid-fire exchange of brilliantly profane zingers and craven self-justifications, as these government middle managers try to square their consciences with their career ambitions. The pathetically small-bore intrigue never threatens to push the film into thriller territory and there aren't enough mistaken identities or slammed doors to qualify as a farce. Instead, In the Loop's interest and humor are propelled by just how plausible the whole sad escapade feels, a sense of reality enhanced by a smartly chosen cinema verite aesthetic. Watching the film, you laugh at the scalding bits of badinage, but you're also laughing to keep from crying at the casual small-mindedness of the characters as they obfuscate their ways to higher pay grades and the deaths of thousands.