Bleakly brilliant satire of the nuclear threat - one of Kubrick's very best.

Rating: 10/10 (23 January 2013)

Such is the esteem with which Stanley Kubrick's name is held in cinematic circles that it's easy to forget that he only directed thirteen feature films during his 46 year career. Choosing the best of those films is no easy task – Kubrick's finest movies are not just masterpieces by his own standards, but masterpieces of cinema as a whole. Dr Strangelove would certainly feature highly on any list, for it is a truly incredible film. Political satire, nuclear comedy, stark warning, apocalyptic drama – it doesn't matter how you categorise the film; it works perfectly under any heading.
Mad American officer, Brigadier-General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), single-handedly instructs a squadron of B-52 bombers to launch a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Ripper is obsessed with the notion that the Commies have been "polluting the bodily fluids" of Americans by fluoridation for decades, and decides the time is right to provoke total annihilation. In the War Room at the Pentagon, American President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), is horrified to discover that one man's irrational paranoid ideals have set into motion a countdown to Armageddon. He and his cabinet desperately try to find a solution to the crisis. Meanwhile, back at Ripper's HQ, an absurdly stiff-upper-lipped RAF officer, Captain Mandrake (Sellers, again), tries to persuade Ripper to reveal to him the recall codes which will bring the bombers back. Ripper shoots himself rather than reveal the codes, but Mandrake figures them out by ingeniously interpreting a number of doodles scrawled across the Brigadier-General's desk. Little of this matters in the slightest, as one of the B-52s piloted by proud Texan Major T.J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens) has suffered radio damage and proceeds towards its primary target, blissfully unaware that all the other bombers have been recalled. Having thought they'd averted disaster by the skin of their teeth, the Americans look on in helpless terror as Kong's plane flies towards its appointment with doomsday
Based on a serious novel by Peter George, Dr Strangelove takes only the basic plot of the book and transforms it into something incredibly bleak and biting. The inability of politicians to grasp the futility of self-destruction is a key theme here, very pertinent considering that the film was made at the height of Cold War brinkmanship. Although time has inevitably diluted the relevance of the "nuclear scare" (nowadays the threat comes from terrorism rather than those pesky Russkies, the film is still enormously powerful and frightening in its absurdity. Sellers is terrific in his triple role (RAF hero, helpless US President and sinister German scientist), but the two stars who make the greatest impression are Hayden as the entirely insane provocateur and Pickens as the dedicated Major Kong. The scene of Kong straddling the bomb to oblivion – yee-hawing like some wild rodeo star as he rides the all-destructive megaton missile to the ground – is one of the most iconic cinematic images of all-time. The script is absolutely razor sharp throughout with some fantastically clever one-liners ("Gentlemen, you cannot fight in here. This is the War Room!") delivered by brilliant caricatures of the men who hold the fate of the world in their hands. Many films have tried since to recapture the magnificently satirical edge of Dr Stangelove – a few have come close, many have fallen short, but none have equalled or surpassed Kubrick's horrifyingly hilarious masterpiece.