The funniest film ever?

Rating: 9/10 (11 July 2005)

Dr Strangelove: or how I learnt to stop worrying and love the bomb is comedy genius.
The film starts with a deranged colonel (Sterling Hayden) ordering a huge fleet of American bombers to attack Russia. His plan: Preserve American purity, by ensuring that the communists don't infect the precious bodily fluids of American people. After ordering the attack, he locks the planes out of reach, using a code. And then barricades himself in his office, with a nervous colleague - played by Peter Sellers, in one of three roles.
As the pentagon gets wind of this, they try and devise a plan to stop the onslaught. Peter Sellers is president Muffey. And with the help of Buck Turgidsen (The brilliant Geroge C. Scott) he tries to negotiate with the Russian ambassador, to stop it. But, things are worse than they first thought. The ambassador informs the president of the doomsday device. A device, that will automatically let rip nuclear warheads, and destroy the world, if any attack on Russia is made. As the bombers close in the tension mounts. An armed unit is sent to the colonel's base to try get the code off him, with little use - this being due to the colonel committing suicide at the last minute. Meanwhile, as this is happening, we follow the path of one of the bombers, which is attacked, and sustains damage. Cutting off radio communication. This is bad news. As the colonel's colleague finally cracks the code, the bombers are aborted. Except one, the damaged one. And so --- the pentagon begins to worry, aware that there is nothing they can do to stop it, they can only hope that the bomber crashes...
In comes Dr Strangelove (Sellers again, his best character) a maniacal split-personality scientist, whose identity changes from Nazi-German at one instance, to Russian citizen the next. They talk about the strategy they must undertake to ensure that if the bombs do go off, that they can still live.
But... Ah, I can't spoil the ending. But rest assured, as tense, and serious as the film seems, it really is quite funny---
Quoting:
"You can't fight in here this is the war room."
"Look at the big board. They're getting ready to clobber us."
---From the hilarious Dr Strangelove, the eccentric Buck Turgidsen, and the nutty-as-a-loon colonel, this film is amazingly funny, and poses a sly question, in it's anti-war themes. Isn't war. And nuclear war just so laughable?
Well, I don't think it's up to me to field that question. But all I can do is highly recommend this film.