The New York Times Arts & Leisure’s Sarah Lyall wrote, “It would be hard to find a more manipulatively back-stabbing or creatively foulmouthed bunch of hypocrites, bullies and cynics than exists in the warped landscape of ‘In the Loop.’…he jokes come at a rate of about three a sentence. But underneath the farce lies a deadly serious point about how Britain played into the United States’ hands in 2003, bolstering its arguments about the imminent danger posed by Saddam Hussein and thus helping guarantee that the war could go ahead.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/movies/19lyal.html

Mark Olsen in the Los Angeles Times talks about the screenplay.  He writes, “‘The trick is to make it sound like the words aren’t written,  that they’re just tumbling out,’ Iannucci said. ‘And I generally don’t give the actors too much time to think about it. They’re more or less learning their lines that day.’”

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-indiefocus19-2009jul19,0,6160548.story

The Chicago Tribune’s Michael Phillips talks to Iannucci about influences.  ”Iannucci took inspiration from such cable TV icons as ‘The Larry Sanders Show’ and, more recently, Ari Gold on ‘Entourage.’  Further back? The polestars of motormouth lunacy: The 1940 classic ‘His Girl Friday,’ director Howard Hawks’ supersonic remake of ‘The Front Page’ starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, left, along with the complete works of Preston Sturges.”

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/talking_pictures/2009/07/am-i-the-only-one-who-thinks-people-dont-talk-fast-enough-in-comedies–we-only-have-one-life-to-live-speed-er-up-the.html

Profiles on the cast:

James Gandolfini talks to the Wall Street Journals’ Candace  Jackson

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204271104574291782581995724.html

Former ‘My Girl’ star Anna Chlumsky now all grown up talks to the NY Daily News’ Joe Dziemianowicz

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2009/07/18/2009-07-18_celebrity_pop_quiz_anna_chlumsky.html

Meanwhile at The Boston Globe, Armando Iannucci tells Sam Allis that “”This is a verbal equivalent of the Bourne films. The action is nonstop.”

http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2009/07/19/armando_iannuccis_in_the_loop_skewers_british_government_at_machine_gun_speed/