Disappointing, unrelentingly bleak

Rating: 5/10 (29 October 2017)

Have been looking forward to this for nearly a year, as a big Iannucci fan. Unfortunately the grimness of the subject is not matched by the somewhat lame farce, so although it has the shape of a comedy I never actually laughed until Paul Whitehouse made a little throwaway comment in the final scene.
I don't agree with other reviewers here that a serious subject cannot form the basis of a comedy. It has been done successfully many times (what could be more serious than terrorism? And yet see Four Lions). Nor do I want to add my voice to a few Russian reviewers claiming that this is insulting propaganda, or is inaccurate to any meaningful degree - how can anyone defend Stalin, or pretend that it is unrealistic to depict him as a habitual murderer? Unfortunately the film is rooted in horrible fact, though we may "bicker and argue about who killed who", as Michael Palin once said.
But nevertheless while the film had every possibility and expectation of working on some level, what attempts at humour there were mostly fell flat, while the attempt to be funny seemed sacrilegious against such an horrific real life backdrop. Had the jokes worked, it might not have seemed so ill-judged. A lame joke seems more tasteless than a good one.