I had to constantly pause the movie to check if some event mentioned in the movie (like a event concering Stalin's son) really happened, and more often than not it did. Really enjoyable!

I'm a fan of black comedy. This is the blackest I've ever seen, and I didn't laugh once. In other words, it's not "Springtime for Hitler" or "Brazil" funny. I nonetheless enjoyed it immensely since I took Russian for a while, traveled to the Soviet Union in 1976 and consider myself rather well informed about the subject matter.It's really black, not a good date movie, but one for history buffs. Emotionally tough ones.

To start off this is one of the best movies i've seen in a while. It's a fresh breath when it comes down to movies about history and Russia as a whole. Not that there are this many movies about Jozef Stalin or the Red army and their period in history. It instantly showed us the fear people had for and the power Stalin had. Some visual gags like men falling off the stairs in the background etc. actually made me giggle a bit, slapstick has been dead for a while yet in this amount it worked. The movie gave ma Doctor Strangelove feeling when it came down to the comedy and laughing about a serious topic. As a movie fanatic I could never have imagined a movie about Stalin his (surprising) natural death to be this funny. It's not a stupid Adam Sandler esc. comedy but a well written smart dark-comedy. The costumes and acting performances delivered by the respected actors are phenomenal. I think that the best thing is that for the first time in my memory Steve Buscemi doesn't die in this movie. It's funny how overacting can sometimes work in this movie, it's well established how Stalin his "Friends" are scared of him and this gets them in some hilarious shenanigans for the first half of the movie. As for the writing it's great, some clever banter as they struggle to get his body out of the room. This tone continues for the rest of the movie. Now to conclude this to be classic : acting : Great, Costumes and sets : Amazing, Cinematography : Good , Directing : For a relativly unknown director a masterpiece, Writing : As said before without a doubt the best thing about the movie.

I see a lot of criticism about how it's not historically accurate, it's not a history lesson it's satire and black comedy. An amusing film and intelligent film in an era of dumb down comedy movies.