The Death Of Stalin - The Best Comedy of 2017

Certificate – 15
Director – Armando Iannucci
Starring – Steve Buscemi; Jeffrey Tambor; Jason Isaacs; Rupert Friend; Olga Kurylenko; Andrea Riseborough; Michael Palin; Paddy Considine & Simon Russell Beale.
Running Time – 104 minutes (1 hour 44 minutes)

★★★★✩

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The man behind such beloved political satire TV shows The Thick of It and Veep is back behind the camera for his follow-up to 2009 feature film debut In The Loop, this time Armando Iannucci is taking on 1950’s Soviet Union in The Death of Stalin.

In 1953 Soviet Union Joseph Starlin (Adrian McLoughlin) has had a fatal heart attack and this creates a power vacuum within his core team of ministers as they plot against each other to take control.

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This is the best comedy of the year. A brilliantly funny, dark and satirical look at the Soviet Union, the humour is much needed when you see these people do awful, monstrous things, especially Beria (Beale) who is a slimy piece of shit who has abused, raped and murdered many Russians.

This is what Iannucci does fantastically, you enjoy these people just trying to survive as there’s no one to root for. Malenkov (Tambor) is a marron who’s only interest is his appearance to the point he wants the same child to recreate Stalin’s balcony image, not taking into count the child has gotten older.

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Whereas Khrushchev (Buscemi) is a brown nose ambitious snake, who has an air of Malcolm Tucker about him. The list of these awful yes men continues and includes an actual python in the form of Palin’s Molotov.

The only saving grace in this time period is Jason Isaacs manly Russian war hero general Zhukov who gives little shit and probably hate all these people but goes with the one that helps him, but it’s so satisfying who he treats all these ministers.

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The humour comes from the fact everyone is terrified of making a mistake or doing the wrong thing and that stems from the opening scene with Paddy Considine being ordered to deliver a recording of the night’s concert that doesn’t exist, so they to do it again.

You can help but laugh when you hear Stalin talking in a heavy cockney accent or Isaacs’ heavy Yorkshire accent as the Russian general.

The whole cast is brilliant as you hate everyone while Isaacs steals the film.

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Verdict

If you’re a fan of Iannucci’s type of satire then you’re in for a treat, but in the mists of the laugh, he doesn’t shy away from the fact this was one of the darkest eras in modern history.