The run up to the Iraq War from the British point of view. Well, a satirical point of view involving a bunch of bumbling bureaucrats from both the US and British side, their burdened press people and the pure insanity of the situation. Actually…I’m not sure if that’s really all that satirical, or just an accurate re-telling of the situation as it was…but it’s funny!
The one side wants the war, and they’re saying whatever the Hell they have to (and plotting as much as possible) to get it. Another side doesn’t want it, but they also want all the fun committees and such. Sure, that sounds pretty much exactly like what happened, and it is…only with more laughter and cock jokes and mockery.
“You talk in tiny parables. You’re like a crap Jesus.”
The whole thing is absolutely hilarious.
“I cannot stand to see a woman bleed from the mouth…reminds me of Country & Western music, which I just cannot abide.”
James Gandolfini is pretty good as a sarcastic general who’s willing to pass information along to the side against the war talk, and who mathematically explains the reality of the troop situation…on a kid’s calculator…in a kid’s room full of toys in The White House. Peter Capaldi is fantastic as bombastic swear merchant Malcolm Tucker.
“I thought it might be nice to go out, rather than just sitting in my room trying to spank one out to a shark documentary, because I’m scared if I watch a porno it’ll end up in the registry of member’s interests.”
Bumbling UK Cabinet Minister Simon Foster somehow manages to find himself in the center of a major international political affair, with both sides gunning to use him. Meanwhile, Malcolm discovers he is to receive a briefing from someone who may have just graduated from Grade 8 (there’s a running joke about how all the neo-cons whiz kids are ridiculously young).
They then return to the mother country and such ‘important matters’ as an estate wall possibly about to collapse on to the greenhouse of someone’s mother.
“Oh great, meeting my constituents. It’s like being Simon Cowell’d, but without the ability to say ‘Fuck off, you’re mental’.”
But it isn’t over for Foster…because he’s stammered his way through so much that he’s actually considered important now, and will help represent British interests during the lead up to the UN vote to go to war.
And then the anti-war document that was going to kill a career becomes a pro-war document that sells the conflict to the UN and makes a career…after some creative editing. And the Rumsfeld type character (played by David Rasche…doesn’t ring a bell? You may remember one of his lead roles from the past) gets busy not micro-managing the war build up by complaining about the choice of movies for the troops in the field.
“I will marshal all the media forces of darkness to hound you to an assisted suicide.”
Thank fucking God for the British, because they can actually produce something funny. The whole movie is fantastic simply because it’s just full of funny dialogue that works. Remember that? No? Watch this movie.
“This is a sacred place. You may not believe that, and I may not believe that, but by God it’s a useful hypocrisy.”
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