Laugh at the Cold War

Rating: 10/10 (26 November 1998)

This is a very strange movie, but I loved it. You can clearly see that Stanley Kubrick had fun making this film. First of all, he knew he had a great idea from the start making a satire about nuclear war. He made a really paranoid film. Then he went ahead and plugged it up with these great absurdities that make you laugh at it all. SPOILERS: Just picture Slim Pickens riding a nuclear bomb like a horse and yelling "Yeeehaw!" There's Strangelove who is a psychotic former Nazi who now works for the US government. He has dillusions of seeing "die fuhrer" and saluting him. Even more absurd is that Peter Sellers plays three parts! Don't ask me why, it's just Kubrick having more fun. There's a classic scene where the President talks to the Premier of Russia on the phone and the main topic of conversation is how it's good to be feeling fine.
There are also sequences (particularly the ending) that can scare the heck out of you. That's what gives the film such an impact. Watching this film now makes one wonder if the world really narrowly escaped global destruction in the Cold War and if it's still possible today.