In the Loop

The Next Reel Film Podcast · Sep 17, 2026 · 59m · transcript

James Gandolfini plays a U.S. general trying to talk sense into two governments hurtling toward a war nobody actually wants, in Armando Iannucci's "In the Loop." Pete and Andy kick off their Institutions Eating Themselves series—a run built around Iannucci's career—alongside Peter Capaldi's foul-mouthed communications chief and Tom Hollander's hapless government minister.

Pete and Andy dig into how the film's rapid-fire, improvised-feeling dialogue was actually mostly scripted, and debate whether its American characters get satirized as sharply as its British ones. It's a sharp, quotable…