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The Death of Stalin Movie Review

The Death of Stalin is a 2017 political satire black comedy film directed by Armando Iannucci and starring Steve Buscemi and Jeffrey Tambor among many others. It’s an overrated movie.

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“All the best doctors are in the gulag or dead“

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After being in power for nearly thirty years, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin takes ill and quickly dies. Now the members of the Council of Ministers scramble for power. This movie was infamously banned in Russia and some other neighboring countries while achieving critical acclaim in the West. I personally find it to be just passable.

When you make a comedy about politics and history, it should be a clever, sophisticated satire. That wasn’t the case here. The film had some clever banter as the dialogue is solid, but most of the humor is derived from buffoonery and grotesque, over-the-top facial expressions and farcical situations. Most of those I found very weak and not at all funny to be honest.

Jeffrey Tambor as Malenkov is underrated here. He was one of the best and most memorable performers in a movie full of great actors. Steve Buscemi was also terrific. Another highlight is Jason Isaacs as this overly confident, brash man. His scenes rank among the funniest in the movie.

The Death of Stalin features tremendous production design, there is no question about it. The sets, the costumes and in particular the palaces looked amazing. The acting is also strong and the movie’s editing and pacing are pretty good as well.

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My main issue with the film is that it failed to honor those people who were wrong and who literally died because of Stalin. If you make a movie about Stalin, you should at least try to make a statement about the many horrors of his regime. But they went the opposite route, which is the buffoonish one. And I would be okay with that if it were funnier. Also, many sections were too dramatic instead of comedic, rendering the movie almost exclusively directed toward the history buffs.

The Death of Stalin is this very overrated political satire black comedy that features a tremendous cast, the standouts being Steve Buscemi, Jason Isaacs and Jeffrey Tambor. The dialogue and the production design are also strong. But the problem here lies in the execution. This type of movie should be more sophisticated, but the execution here is one filled with over-the-top facial expressions, ridiculous situations and too much unfunny buffoonery. The film also failed to make any meaningful commentary about Stalin’s regime.

My Rating – 3