Russian "Backstabbers" by the Comrade OJays

Rating: 8/10 (29 March 2018)

This is like Dr. Strangelove but with fewer laughs (and I should say rightfully so!) and not as great an aesthetic... But then again thats a tall friggin order to fill. Taking place all within the first days if Stalin's death (with a sort of prologue showing the night before, which includes the obvious and ridiculous but probably very true set piece of an orchestra having to do their live performance again, audience included, because it wasn't recorded, plus the stroke that got him), this is satire so thick in its darkness you will get lost trying to find your way out.
With a couple of tweaks this could have been a straightforward and highly believable biopic on that period when Stalin's death revealed the many maggots writhing underneath the Red facade. Luckily Iannuci has learned from the masters - Michael Palin being here isnt an accident I'm guessing (Holy Grail was shot with the look of Pasolini influence) - that if you have an authentic backdrop, everything else you can buy into. While everyone using their own accents might seem distracting to some, I dug it; it's like, hey, you know what? Lets not kid ourselves with putting on phoney-baloney accents.
It makes for a wholly unique, unnerving, often funny experience that I won't forget for a while. By the way, it's banned in Russia... Sure. They'll allow The Road Movie, but this?