Excellent UK comedy In The Loop has scored itself an Academy Award nomination in the 'Writing - Adapted Screenplay' category. If you hurry you can still catch this sharp, crude, critically acclaimed and utterly hilarious comedy in selected cinemas throughout the country. This is a film that has outraged all the wrong people, but as far as the movie's director Armando Iannucci is concerned, they're just the right people - politicians and government bureaucrats. He considers this the ultimate compliment for his li'l ol' movie.

In The Loop is based on Iannucci's UK TV series, The Thick Of It, a political satire that began in 2005. Perhaps the best way to describe it is that's it's the political equivalent of Gervais and Merchant's faux-doco The Office - containing fierce wit and downright cringeworthy moments in equal measure. Not surprisingly, The Thick Of It was, and is, a hit in the UK - and so we come to its natural progression, the star-studded full-length feature In The Loop. But all the purists out there can rest assured, this ain't no artless cash-in. It should please the hardcore fans of the series just as much as the newcomers.

The indispensable Peter Capaldi reprises his role as angry, foul-mouthed, Scottish adviser to the PM, Malcolm Tucker - seriously, this guy makes Billy Connolly look like a squeaky clean children's entertainer. No one is immune from his four-letter-word-fuelled tirades - not the timid British Secretary of State for International Development (Tom Hollander, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pride and Prejudice), not even a hard-nosed man-mountain of a US Military General (James Gandolfini).

But although these crude - and loud - lectures from Capaldi are hilariously offensive, there's a hell of a lot more to In The Loop than his potty mouth, or that of his Scottish adviser doppelganger (played very Capaldian by Paul Higgins, also reprising his role from The Thick Of It). This is one sharp-as-a-tack commentary that could perhaps be compared to Hollywood's Wag The Dog, starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, but even that wouldn't be doing it justice when it comes to belly laughs. Add that to the excellent acting from all concerned, including Mimi Kennedy, Chris Addison (another graduate of The Thick Of It), the all-growns-up My Girl herself, Anna Chlumsky, and an unsurprisingly gut-bustingly funny turn from Steve Coogan.

The screenplay up for the Oscar was written by Jesse Armstrong (The Thick Of It, Peep Show) and the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony will be held in Los Angeles on Sunday, March 7. In The Loop will be released on DVD and Blu-ray in June through Madman Entertainment.