Death of Stalin

Years after the Good Doctor of Gonzo Journalism Hunter S. Thompson famously covered George McGovern's doomed 1972 Presidential campaign, Frank Mankiewicz, McGovern's campaign manager quipped that Thompson's exhaustive book, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, was the "least factual, most accurate account" of the election.
 

Armando Iannucci's Death Of Stalin is a devastating satire replete with the Good Doctor's defiant spirit. When reality is too brutal to grasp head on, we turn to comedy to tell the story with veracity. The film's banishment in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, attests to both Iannuci's success and to the film's unmistakable quality. Russians aren't known for their lack of sense of humour, unless it's about themselves. Despite Stalin's unprecedented death tally, the Russian authorities still consider him above outright reproach and certainly far above ridicule.

Luckily for us, Armando Iannucci has no such qualms. Iannucci masterfully pits Stalin's inner circle as a claque of incompetent vultures angling to inherit Stalin's infinite power. Imagine a Marx Brothers comedy set in Stalinist Russia, complete with an outrageous running gag involving firing squads.

Deputy Secretary Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) is Stalin's favourite to succeed him, although no one knows why considering he can't avoid mentioning former party members Stalin has long since executed ("How am I supposed to remember who's alive and who's dead?"). Moscow Party Head Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) is full of uproariously vulgar war stories that keep the Boss jolly, but when a joke about farmers meets with a lukewarm reception, his wife admonishes him, "No more farmer jokes!" Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov's (Michael Palin) devotion to Stalin is unyielding, and only increases after Stalin sends his wife to the gulag. But the most vicious satire is reserved for none other than NKVD Head Lavrenty Beria (Simon Russell Beale), who undoubtedly distinguishes himself as one of the most repulsive psychopaths in history, and has an ignominious end to match.

The incendiary script burns so hot half the jokes fly by at sputnik speed, but its farcical mania captures the incomprehensible absurdity of the depths of Stalinism and its pernicious effect on the psychology of an entire country and its long suffering people. Condemned men and women shouting "Long Live Stalin!" just as they get a bullet in the skull. It would be a lot funnier if it weren't grounded in truth.