Loop de loop.

In the Loop is a tricky, wry film that somehow manages to be outrageously funny and deeply depressing at once. Call me a cynic when it comes to Washington, war, and international relations, but I have a feeling there really might be a battle of evil vs. the inept (with a few intelligent people caught impotently in the periphery) playing out in the back rooms of foreign politics. However, I doubt real life machinations are this funny, or that the cursing is so inspired.

Stylistically, although it isn't suggested in the plot that there is a documentary film crew shooting the action, the hand-held camerawork and dialogue's racing wit mean the movie unfolds like a there's been a marriage between the British series "The Office" and the American version of "The Office," one of whom has had a brief affair with Wag the Dog but come back to the relationship ready to work it out. It's about politics, as I've insinuated, instead of paper and is capped off by a lovely cameo from Steve Coogan. In a special twist, American political aid Chad is Gareth, British Secretary of State for International Development Simon Foster is David Brent, Dharma's mom bleeds from the mouth, and Tony Soprano wants peace (but, then didn't he always, to a certain extent)?

This isn't to say it's derivative. On the contrary, In the Loop is its own animal, a thick film that starts strong and keeps firing until the end. "It's all fun and games until somebody gets an eye poked out," as the saying goes. I was left in the dust like nearly everyone in the movie when it was all over, but -- wartime or peacetime -- it's never really all over, is it? Not while there's a politician left in Washington or Number 10 Downing Street...