“While In the Loop is a highly disciplined inquiry into a very serious subject, it is also, line by filthy line, scene by chaotic scene, by far the funniest big-screen satire in recent memory. The hand-held camera work, the hectic jump-cuts and the grubby visuals may resemble television, but the restless pacing and drab appearance serve a clear aesthetic purpose.

“At the end you may feel a little unclean, which is also evidence of director-writer Armando Iannucci‘s satirical rigor. The people in whose hands momentous decisions rest are shown — convincingly and in squirming detail — to be duplicitous, vindictive, small-minded and untrustworthy. But why should they be any different from the rest of us?” — from A.O. Scott‘s N.Y. Times review, which has been posted three days before the 7.31 opening.