Excellent black comedy; excellent ensemble acting. ( )

This film is a fiction, not a documentary. It's a darkly comic look at the small group of buffoons and psychopaths who ran the Soviet Union during the early 1950's. Although Iannucci has altered and compressed events for dramatic reasons, the overall effect matches the picture in Taubman's biography "Khrushchev : the man and his era". This Praesidium was a gang of fools who could only play at governance. A good film if dark is to your taste. ( )

After Stalin's death, his ministers fight for control of the Soviet Union.

2/4 (Indifferent).

I was expecting a screwball comedy. This is seemingly historically accurate, and way too dark to be any fun. ( )