A double dose of genius

Rating: 10/10 (24 December 2013)

What do you get when one of the most versatile directors of the 20th century, and one of its most gifted comedians, team up with a great support cast to make a black comedy?
You get what arguably is the best black comedy ever made - but certainly one of the best.
The plot is straightforward: a plane carrying atomic bombs is accidentally sent to drop 'em over Russia, and its Texan pilot refuses any attempts to be recalled. In the meantime, senior military personnel and the US president debate how to turn this problem to their advantage.
It pokes fun at US leadership and its military at the height of the Cold War, and by implication at all things American, while maintaining a certain respect and reverence for its subject. Only a pair of Brits could pull that off. Recently, on a much lesser scale, only Jean Luc Besson with "The 5th Element" has been able to pull off this kind of satire, from a French perspective.
Peter Sellers is near his pinnacle here, which he bested only in "Being There," not long before his death. Given Sellers' penchant for improv, and Kubrick's "by the book, let's do 100 takes of every scene until I'm satisfied" approaches, it must have been interesting on the set. Sellers' inimitable physicality comes out in all three roles, although my favorite is his Wernher Von Braun in-a-wheelchair parody. People of a certain age group only need to see someone clasp one hand with the other while pretending to strangle themselves, and will immediately collapse in laughter at this meme.
Warning #1: if you don't like Seller's style of slapstick (i.e. you hate "The Party" or "The Pink Panther"), then "Dr. Strangelove" may be a bit over the top for you. Warning #2: Actor Slim Pickens (his real name) plays Major 'King' Kong in this film. Then the character naming really gets weird!
The movie is deep, and too close to the truth, but its finest details have been analyzed plentifully and need not be rehashed here. Suffice it to say that I have seen it four times, yet still discover devilish new details in dialogue, set design and story arc whenever I see it again.
A masterpiece of the mid-twentieth century.