Political satire is one of the hardest things to get the balance right. It's either too intellectually challenging or just downright stupid. Amando Iannucci, the king of British political satire, knows exactly how to handle it, and with this big screen version of The Thick Of It, he hits the nail on the head square on.
The plot to this hilarious comedy is so complex that I won't bore you with it here, just to say a dim-witted MP gets into a whole host of trouble when he announces he is favour of war, and it is up to spin doctor supremo Malcolm Tayler to get him and the government out of it.
The reason you should see it, is because this is the funniest, sharpest, most intelligent comedy to hit the screen in years. Biting enough to make it scarily real and funny enough for you to forget about the problems of the outside world.
The performances are pitch-perfect. Gina McKee is both funny and smart, while new kid Chris Addison is great as the over-excitable new boy who makes some fatal mistakes. Nice to see Anna Chlumsky back on the screen (she of My Girl fame) all grown up, and James Gandolfini plays away from stereotype as a US General who doesn't want a war.
The film, however, belongs to three men. Amando Innaccui, who directs with the documentary style that doesn't distract from the cracking script; Tom Hollander as the woefully inept MP, who bumbles through the film with great aplomb; and Peter Calpaldi, who as spin doctor Malcolm Taylor, has created one of the most memorable characters to hit our screens. His foul-mouthed attacks are both brutal and hilarious, just every form of bad language in the book and some that haven't even been invented yet. A tour-de-force in both energy and attack, he raises the bar every time he is on screen.
If you want a great laugh, then you could no wrong than go and see this fantastic film that will have you aching. And remember kids, swearing isn't big and it isn't clever, but in the hands of Peter Capaldi, it is hysterical.
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