Politics & Bros: Humpday and In the Loop A new twist on the bromance. PLUS: Transatlantic political satire!

According to Humpday, the world could add two new initials to its LGBT sexual-orientation schema: BG, or “beyond gay.” That’s what the film’s Seattle bohos at a hookah-smoking, free-loving party call their idea for an entry into the city’s annual amateur porn festival. The money shot? Two straight dudes, best friends in fact, gettin’ it on. Whoa.

Guess you had to be there. What exactly makes this conceit so mind-blowing— “art porn,” the brainstormers deem it—is never clear in writer-director Lynn Shelton’s contribution to the already-tired mumblecore genre. With an irritating unsteady-cam, Shelton tells the story of Ben (Mark Duplass, a veteran ’core actor and filmmaker), who’s settled into a white-picket-fence lifestyle with his wife, Anna (Alycia Delmore). He thinks he’s satisfied with this low-key existence until an old college friend, Andrew (Joshua Leonard), shows up for a visit in the middle of the night. To Anna’s irritation, Ben lets Andrew crash at their place and explains to her that it’s just how the guy rolls. The next day, he joins Andrew at the aforementioned party at a house dubbed Dionysus, initially seeming uncomfortable but soon getting high and agreeing that boning his buddy on film is a great idea.

Despite Humpday’s being marketed as a comedy, the jokey premise soon turns serious, first when Anna finds out about the plan and later when the boys actually try to make it happen. But this is actually to Shelton’s credit: Her portrait of a bromance is dramatic rather than Apatowian—and therefore a more novel idea than two straight people of the same sex fooling around for sheer exhibitionism. There are true moments here, too. Leading up to the main event, Ben and Andrew talk—and talk and talk—about their divergent post-college paths, ultimately realizing that their lifestyles don’t necessarily speak to their personalities: “I’m not limited because I’m married,” Ben says, hinting that his insistence on following through on the “project” is, ironically, an alpha-male decision. Anna is naturally freaked out when she finds out about their plan and doesn’t buy Ben’s rationale of needing a life outside their relationship, telling him in a nicely worded line that “there are just as many parts to me that aren’t fed by this.”

Undermining the film, though, are jarring inconsistencies in the characters’ personalities as well as an overall lack of logic. A scene in which Andrew is supposed to join a lesbian couple for a little orgy action takes an unbelievable turn when he gets offended by the women’s desire to supplement the fun with a dildo. Anna swings from uptight—or, depending on your perspective, normal—to wildly open-minded. The worst offender, however, is Ben: He first tells Anna that although he isn’t sure why, having sex with Andrew “is important to me.” (Adding, laughably, “And I don’t see the reason we have to get all worked up about it.”) But later he says, “There’s nothing in the world I want to do less.” If you can’t see the genius in this idea to begin with, the latter reaction is obviously more understandable.

Humpday’s final chapter has Ben and Andrew in a motel room trying to go beyond gay. Parts of it are admittedly funny—in a very straight-guy manner, they clap and yell to try to psych themselves, quite literally, up—but mostly the protracted scene makes you think, Why are they doing this again? Another thought: Shut up already. There’s more overanalysis here than in a week’s worth of The View, which may result in a more grown-up look at male friendship—one that drowns in its own earnestness.

One-liners, a barrage of pop-culture references, and caricatures of slow-moving targets can be exhausting, even when done well. In the Loop is a feature-length walk-and-talk, Scottish writer-director Armando Iannucci’s big-screen debut based on his BBC political-comedy series, The Thick of It. Like a cross between The Office and The West Wing, the film proffers sharp satire as it skewers British and U.S. red-tape relations. But its whiplash, joke-a-second pace may eventually have you tuning out instead of gasping for breath.

In the Loop follows the administrations of bumbling U.K. cabinet minister, Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), and American officials Karen Clarke (Mimi Kennedy) and Linton Barwick (David Rasche) as they tussle over the legitimacy of our country’s reasons for war. The former two advocate peace, but Foster, his new assistant (Chris Addison), and his expletive-happy press secretary (Peter Capaldi) decide they need to fly to D.C. to smooth over Foster’s slip of the tongue on a radio program that made him sound pro-war. Meanwhile, Clarke finds out about Barwick’s secret war committee and heads proceed to butt as the film’s legion of major and minor characters run around, bark into cell phones, and strategize about how to undermine the opposition.

Iannucci’s debut is well-orchestrated chaos, filmed with The Office’s zoom-in-and-out documentary style, with a cast that makes every utterance snap. Adversaries nickname each other with movie titles (“What the fuck’s Cocoon doing here?”) and swear like sailors, with some of the most inventive threats and vulgarisms ever put to screen. Standouts include Kennedy, who resembles Jane Curtain and is just as dry; Hollander, who puts a simultaneously sharp yet clueless modern spin on his odious Mr. Collins from 2005’s Pride and Prejudice; and Capaldi, whose vicious damage-controller makes it clear why he’s best working behind the scene. The humor revolves around very young staffers (“When I left, I tripped over his fucking umbilical cord”), constant missteps (“You’re in hot water—you’re lobsterizing”), and a general sense of burnout (Foster refers to his constituents as “slightly mentally dispossessed”—while having a meeting with one of them). James Gandolfini also has a small, caustic role as a Pentagon-entrenched general.

But like reading the headlines or OD’ing on CNN, there’s a risk of audience burnout as well. There’s hardly a quiet moment throughout the film’s 106 minutes, which may be representative of the milieu but doesn’t necessarily translate into entertaining viewing. Your head spins as you laugh and try to catch every punch line. And then, just like the more easily confused politicos, you leave In the Loop feeling rather out of it instead.