A mixed film for me. First off we get a lot of narration which I think is often a sign a film isn't working when someone needs to narrate over it to tell us what's happening, "In Russia there was this...... "When this character went here he did this....." We also get a lot of archive footage of all the revolutions and fighting because the actual film that they have shot is nearly 100% just people sat in rooms talking to each other, it's almost like a play and certainly not very cinematic. Events get rushed through at breakneck speed. I think it was a good lead performance, Stalin is shown as cold, grim, merciless, a paranoid despot with no likeable traits. He's even a brute to his son and wife. The other figures around him are also fleshed out, some of the casting works but not for Beria, why is he Indian with a full head of hair? There's also no mention of really important historic moments like the division of Berlin between East and West or the soviets pressing need to acquire the atom bomb. All in all a mixed review.
