Armando Iannucci's political satire gives a darkly humourous, profanity-laced insight into the inter-office bullying and intimidation that keeps a government department ticking over.

Peter Capaldi (right) excels as Malcolm Tucker, the vicious Alastair Campbell-esque Scot whose job it is to be the Prime Minister's 'problem solver', and all round henchman. When he hears middle-ranking government minister Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) slip up during an interview, all hell breaks loose. The film follows Foster and his new assistant Toby (Chris Addison) on a 'fact finding visit' from London to Washington. There, thtey are hunted by Tucker as he pursues his own agenda of disrupting a UN vote enough for it to be passed in favour of a war.

The filmmakers have admitted that the film does draw some inspiration from Tony Blair and the Iraq War, but this is handled in a subtle manner. Whilst the entire film is based around Foster's opposition to the war and his inability to successfully 'tread the line', it serves mainly as a background to the psychological war raging between Tucker and just about everyone else. The Americans are portrayed as either useless, war-mongering adolescents or egotistical megalomaniacs. The American members of the cast handle their roles very well with James Gandolfini superb as the chameleon General Miller. This enables Iannucci to create wonderful confrontations between Tucker, Foster and their American opposite numbers and whilst the amount of verbal violence is funny and impressive (as the cast were encouraged to use some improvisation by Iannucci), the remorseless profanity does become a little tiresome by the end of the film.

2XS rating: 8/10

John Stanley

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