A delightful retelling of the chaos following Stalin's death in the style of Arrested Development

Rating: 8/10 (23 February 2018)

Stalin was no angel. A sociopath who firmly held on to his throne by inciting fear, paranoia and killings of random "Enemies of the State". Thus it should come of no surprise that his death would leave behind a enormous power vacuum that had to be sealed else the lives of his followers, minsters and eventually the entire Soviet population would be sucked into that abyss.
This is where his bungling team of closely knit sycophantic ministers of The Central Committee intervene and engage in a rat race to become Stalin's successor. The bunch in this dark comedy interact quite cordially when they all meet but, since this is the Soviet Union, none would would bat an eye to silence the others if it gave him unrestrained access to the title of General Secretary.
I liked all the actors in the ensemble cast; they never featured much as lead roles but portrayed amazing supporting characters in movies and television. Steve Buscemi was ever dependable and likable as sort of the anti hero Kruschev .Jeffrey Tambor as Malenkov brought along the flair and comedic deadpan expressions of Arrested Development.
However, I wished they brought more light to the character of Lavrenti Beria,the First Secretary and Official Pedophile of the Soviet Union. They sort of just give 2 or 3 brief scenes where his excessively inhumane traits are shown but they are more like pointers to the audience that he is probably the crooked of the lot.
As reference, I would highly recommend the 1983 dark comedy Red Monarch which is very similar plotwise to The Death Of Stalin but showed the character of Beria to a greater detail (I initially googled ""Stalin Beria comedy film" since I had forgotten the name but the search results were all flooded with Death of Stalin references only. So it took me quite a while to finally recall the name since it turns out the film is quite obscure) .
Some of the reviews are criticizing Death of Stalin as ineffective satire or bad history. Satire, this definitely isn't. As I have pointed out, it's more of a comedic retelling of those past events. And as for authenticity, I am pretty sure thorough fact checking is least on your agenda when you try to mix Communism with Comedy. The point is more of an intentional, slightly over the top representation of the anarchy that flourished in the Union . If you the viewer are intrigued by the overall story after watching, you definitely should read actual historical narratives for more accurate information.
So, in conclusion, Death of Stalin is nothing exceptional or breaking new ground but it certainly calls for a one time watch.