Before I start, I have to say I haven’t seen the show In the Thick of it, which this film apparently was somewhat based on, so I have no previous references. Of course, as always, a film should be able to stand on its own and the audience shouldn’t have to know other sources to understand the film itself. Right? Good.
When the film immediately starts it really evoked the feeling that The Office had, however this seems to go away after a little while, like the film became embarrassed or something. However it does also become quite clear that this is nothing like The Office, particularly in its style and “realism”. The film is a parody of government and bureaucracy. And it works quite well. Indeed, I found the film to be very funny, although some might not like this particular type of British humor. The story goes that some people want to invade an unnamed country, while others don’t. One particularly useless British MP indicates on National television that he wishes for war, although he really doesn’t, he’s just extremely inept at expressing himself. Who’s on whose side? No one really knows. Who wants what? Well, no one really know that either, and the ensuing chaos which goes from the streets of London all the way to Washington DC is what most of this films spends its time exploring.
Although the dialogue is occasionally hilarious, I found the film to be quite dialogue heavy. Like someone said on IMDb, it’s an extremely quotable film, but I think it is too much so. There’s only so many times that I find the though British guy who tells people what sort of assorted items he’s going to stick up their ass funny. The characters, one dimensional as they were, are very funny, and work in the way that archetypes work. I particularly liked one sleazy gentleman who worked in Washington, the kind of guy that always promises you that everything will be alright and he’ll sort it out, then stabs you in the back with the knife your own son made in shop class. And he made it as a gift to you! I also liked how the film showed how Americans and the British really feel about each other. Where the Americans just think the British are a little bit silly and non-threatening, while the British admire the Americans in awe in the same way that a child will admire Superman.
But having said all that, I feel that the film is a bit lazy, lazy in that particular way that it lulls its audience back into a comforting state of paralysis where they don’t think about the world in an engaging way. The film parodies the inner workings of government and portrays everyone therein as either a massive idiot or just someone controlled by someone else, who is probably also an idiot. And so we, the audience, sit back in our IKEA sofa, laugh and point, and say “Yes! Everyone in government is really an idiot; it’s a chaotic mess where no one knows what’s going on. Now let’s eat our lasagna before it gets cold.” Obviously the film is heightened reality, a parody, and all of it is really just the most extreme made even a little bit more extreme. But in its doing so, I feel that it doesn’t quite hit close enough to home, it’s funny, but a little too silly. It doesn’t really take a stance, or come close to making people question the inner workings of political government. Obviously there are a lot of traces of the truth in there, I just feel it creates itself a little too much like a parody, and a little too less as a satire.
Still, the film is entertaining, and at times hilarious. It starts off a bit slowly, but as the plot thickens it gets more and more interesting. Worth a watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment