Word: simonal
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...sort of spin-off of the 2005 BBC political comedy series The Thick of It, the movie is directed by series creator Armando Iannucci and written by Thick veterans Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche and Ian Martin. Its central character is a Candidean foreign minister in the British cabinet, Simon Foster (tiny, beset Tom Hollander). A sweet-souled doofus of the second tier, Simon is invited to attend to top-secret conferences, but not to give opinions, only as an extra body - "room meat." And he's so fearful of scandal that, if left alone at night...
...movie, filmed in the fakeumentary style of The Office, sends Simon bumbling through Whitehall, the White House and the United Nations, where he has no more luck than he does in meetings with his constituents, which he compares to "being Simon Cowell, but without the ability to say, "F--- off, you're mental." Led into a radio discussion of a possible war against an unnamed Middle Eastern nation, Simon gauchely says, "Personally, I think that war is unforeseeable." Trying to worm his way out of the gaffe, he burrows in deeper when he tells the press: "To walk the road...
...Malcolm, based on Tony Blair spokesman Alistair Campbell, is a splendidly splenetic creature, with instant obscene jeremiads for anyone who crosses him. When Simon's assistant Judy (Gina McKee) says that certain classified information "falls well within my purview," Malcolm explodes: "Within your purview? Where do you think you are, some f---in, Regency costume drama? This is a government department, not some f---in, Jane f---in, Austen novel!" And the movie is not one of those genial Brit rom-coms like Notting Hill or Four Weddings and a Funeral. It's closer to the high-IQ ranting...
...main butts of the Brit politicians, scorn are the Americans, whom they hold in contempt curdled with envy, as in: We passed the running-of-the-world baton to these people? Simon's chief aide Judy (Lina Mckee), seeing baby-faced college grads in high positions, notes that "They're all kids in Washington. It's like Bugsy Malone, but with real guns." Malcolm is less subtle. Recalling Britain's vanished might, Malcolm tells one of the American brats, "We burnt this tight-assed city to the ground in 1814, and I'm all for doin' it again...
...think there should always be freedom of the press? Simon Costello, AUSTRALIA...