‘In the Loop’ a biting, witty satire of war and politics

From across the pond to inside the Beltway, “In the Loop” skewers wonks without mercy. The Brit-made satire is a barely veiled slap at the shamelessly manipulated Anglo-American policy that precipitated the Iraqi War. There’s nothing funny about the deadly predicament that has been wrought by that real-life scheme since 2003. But you can’t help but chortle at this absurdist fiction of batty bureaucrats who bicker, backbite and literally bonk each other in the sack and figuratively bonk each other at the conference table.

It’s set amid the corridors of power in London, New York City and right here in Washington, D.C.. Ambitious, petty narcissists slouch from Whitehall to the State Department in Foggy Bottom to United Nations headquarters with a collective obliviousness. The sense of inevitable doom and their dry tone has roots in the essential masterpiece of the political farce genre, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

Reportedly and sometimes obviously, the terrific ensemble of actors partially improvised the screenplay which is credited to writers Jesse Armstrong, Tony Roche and Simon Blackwell. Director Armando Iannucci makes his debut feature with characters that originated on his popular BBC series, “The Thick of It.”

The Prime Minister’s diabolically effective Director of Communications, Malcolm Tucker (hilarious Peter Capaldi), makes his way to the big screen leading with foul-mouthed ferociousness. This time he must wrangle a bumbling minor minister and various minions as international conflict looms.

When Britain’s Minister of International Development Simon Foster (great “Masterpiece Theater” denizen Tom Hollander) contradicts his government’s leanings and lets slip that he thinks war is “unforeseeable,” it sets in motion a showdown between doves and hawks from both sides of the Atlantic.

A secret committee, a contrarian’s policy paper, a media leak, and – weirdly, laughably — a deteriorating garden wall in the English countryside will each figure into the 11th hour maneuverings that will determine the fate of careers and nations.

Though they often have feet of clay, the “good guys” trying to prevent hasty action include Simon’s randy aid (Chris Addison), a crusading Assistant Secretary of State (Mimi Kennedy), her aid (“My Girl”‘s Anna Chlumsky, now grown up), and James Gandolfini as a pragmatic army general.

Acerbic pop culture references to everything from “Bugsy Malone” and White Stripes to American Idol and “Harry Potter” pepper their witty repartee in a laudable “Loop.”