Sadly Over-hyped

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

When it comes to mass murderers, they don't get much bigger or worse than the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Ruling the Soviet Union from the mid-1920's to 1953, his reign was one of death and terror on a scale of such heights that it would give Adolf Hitler a run for his money as to who was worse. And yet surprisingly there are very few films (at least in the Western world) made about this man or his reign of terror. One of the few films from the west about him is the HBO produced docudrama "Stalin". Made not long after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992, it pretty accurately chronicles Stalin, from his rise in the Bolshevik party to the height of his monolithic power at the end of World War II. Playing Stalin is Robert Duvall. Now I admit, at first glance that sounds like one of the worst casting decisions ever. However, believe me when I tell you that not only does Duvall look and sound like Stalin through the use of good makeup and an accent, he BECOMES Stalin. In fact, the more the movie went on, the less and less I saw him as Duvall and the more and more I saw him as the real Stalin. It's a real testament to Duvall's ability as an actor, especially considering that Duvall is about as far away from an ethnic Georgian as you can get (Stalin was from the former Soviet Georgia). I would even go as far to say that Duvall's portrayal of Stalin is perhaps the closest we have as to who the real Stalin was, a paranoid mass murderer who was just as much at ease condemning his former close comrades to death as he was starving the Russian peasants in order to pay for the industrialization of the Soviet Union. Of course, Duvall's performance is the not the only good one here; the epic drama boasts an amazing supporting cast in the form of the late, great Maximilian Schell as Lenin, Julia Ormond as Stalin's suffering wife Nadya, Joan Plowright as Nadya's mother Olga, Roshan Seth as the treacherous Beria, and many more that I don't have the space for. In addition, the sets for the Kremlin are breath taking and for good reason: It's the real thing! The film crew was granted unprecedented freedom to the Kremlin buildings after the fall of Soviet Union, as well as the dacha just outside Moscow that Stalin stayed at the most. All of this gives the film a very realistic look that might not have been possible otherwise. Some people have expressed disappointment that the film did not pay as much attention to Stalin's atrocities as maybe it could have and it is indeed true that we barely get a brief look at World War II from Stalin's viewpoint, the war that propelled him to his greatest heights of power. However one has to keep in mind that there's only so much you can put in a film, especially when it's a film about Stalin. Furthermore, I would argue that we do get a look at Stalin's crimes, albeit a subtle one, be it the scene where Nadya witnesses people being herded into cattle cars while passing through a train station or the general talk of people disappearing left and right throughout the film. It's also important to keep in mind that the film is meant to be about the man Stalin and the effect he had on those closest to him and on this, the film largely succeeds. The movie is also thankfully widely available on you tube and DVD as well, which makes viewing it very easy. In short, "Stalin" is a film that one should watch, not only because of the importance of history but as a warning to future generations of what can happen when people collectively give up freedoms, checks and balances, their faith in God and what's right, and instead put all their hope in one man with absolute power over life and death. For in the words of Lord Acton, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." These words indeed describe Stalin to a tee. So watch, learn, and never forget the lessons of the monster that was Joseph Stalin.

"This Stalin was not a very nice dude." Henry remarked. He was having a bud, because he always had Budweiser in his fridge, which was a huge red contraption from the firm Northstar that was a remake of those older refrigerators from the fifties. Kristl might have also had a bud, but then she felt that the west was already over Americanized, so instead she drunk triple X. "Why on earth would you drink an Australian beer as a German?" Henry had remarked, when Kristl ordered the six pack via the internet. "Austrian." Kristl corrected. "Eh.. Triple X is Australian. Oh wait. Sorry. You meant you are Austrian." he grinned, "Don't they have Ger.. eh. Austrian beers?" "Yes, but I like Triple X." Kristl had said."No, he wasn't even though the movie is more focused on his private life than I would have expected. It seems to sort of make him look more favorable than I imagine him to be, but even then he remains a scary individual. The way he can be very jolly with you and then suddenly have you ordered to death. Like that moment when one of his old friends is about to be arrested by secret police and Stalin 'happens' to call at that very moment and orders them to leave.The sadist laughs at it. It just pictures him as madman." "Yeah. I think everyone he knew ended up dead eventually. And when he tosses his burning cigar down his wives shirt: what a nasty thing to do. " "There a lot of things that they had to skip it seems. Like there is a part missing at the beginning of World War II where the Sovjet-Union invade Finland, had a kind of shadow war with the Japanese and signed a pact with Hitler that gave him control over the Baltic nations and the eastern part of Poland. Also skipped is the part where a thousands of polish officers were massacred on his order. The list could be extended. Like the way the west tried to dispose of the communist regime at the end of the first world war. Like in the twenties there was a kind of alliance with Germany. Or the Ukrainian uprising at the end of the Second World War. All things that must have influenced this man and his decisions. " "Yeah." "The pity with this movie is that you somehow does not get to grips with the person of Stalin.. Even though Stalin is the subject of the movie, it feels like you are watching him from the outside, but never get in his inside.Never find his motivation or his side of the story. In that I find the move somewhat sterile. You never get to know what moved this man and what possessed him. Why he did those things?" "I think that might be because of the makeup. It looks like Duvalls is wearing a mask. His facial expression is almost non-existent." "I like Robert Duvall, he is a good actor, but they hamstrung him with that mask and thus the movie suffers. You are watching a statue.Still even then Duvall is marvelous because he tries to invoke emotions with that part of his face that is not cloaked with wax." "Yeah, I am left with the feeling that Stalin was a homicidal nut-case surrounded by nut-cases, most of whom were as Homicidal as he was.." Henry said. "And it leaves me with questions. Like how can a nut-case rule a big country like that for decades on end. It seems to beyond belief. Too simple an explanation to assume he is just a nut-case." "Also the movie suffers a bit because his wife kills herself halfway. Basically the story is told by following her and then she dies and that leaves the story suddenly without a focus and it never gets a focus again even though the story is told by his daughter.." Kristl nodded. "So leaves you a bit unfulfilled?" "Yes." "That is why we have beer." Henry grinned and he opened another bud. "Oh, to get fulfilled?" Kristl said. "Yes and to forget we are not." Henry burped. "And forget about him." "That too."

I'm not a great fan of biography films, but Stalin is an exception. This film was fantastic when I first watched it in History class. This film basically showcases the important aspects of the life the Russian leader Joseph Stalin. From his early political career to the rise of the Soviet Union and eventually the Moscow Show Trials, the Great Purges and the last stages of his life, told through the eyes of his daughter. Stalin features a powerful and riveting performance by Robert Duvall, as well as similarly great performances from the supporting actors including Maximillian Schell and Julia Ormond. The music by Stanislas Syrewicz is epic and suits the film very well. The screenplay is very gripping and well-written. The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is wonderful as well as the atmosphere. Also look out for Kevin McNally in an small role before he played Gibbs in Pirates of the Caribbean. Overall, Stalin is must-watch film for those interested in biographies, historical figures and well, good movies.

To appreciate this film you might read any one of the best accounts of Stalin's dictatorship by Roy Medvedev, Dmitri Volkogonov, Edvard Radzinsky, Simon Sebag Montefiore, or Donald Rayfield. If you know these books you'll find little reason to argue with how this film portrays 'The Boss'. Other reviewers on this site have noted how well Robert Duvall captures Stalin's surly, crude, cunning, sadistic, paranoid personality. They're right. He's marvellous in the role. One reviewer has questioned whether Voroshilov would have dared to shout at Stalin, as he does in this film, at the start of the war. This is a fair point as Stalin picked his men carefully for their inability to stand up to him or take initiative. However, Donald Rayfield cites an example of the normally slavish Voroshilov doing something very like what is portrayed in the film, shouting at Stalin as war with the Nazis was looming for murdering most of the Red Army high command and so crippling the defences of the USSR. He was one of the few men to do anything of the kind and survive StalinThe film is shot at the scenes of the crimes - the Kremlin at Stalin's Kuntsevo dacha - and is sumptuous watching as a result. Watch out for Satlin's huge, waddling shadow on the ceiling as he climbs a great staircase, an incubus about to settle on the Soviet People. It might be a standard trick but it doesn't look contrived. Rather less convincing are the portrayals of Stalin's wife and some of his associates. This is the fault of the script or the direction or both, not the actors. For example, Stalin's second wife Nadya was not quite the principled heroine seen here who apparently took her own life because she saw no other escape from the evil that her husband was bringing to the country. The real Nadya brought some of her own problems to her marriage and these contributed to her death. Bukharin, wretched in his final weeks, may have been the best of them but that was saying little. He was not quite the noble, tragic 'swan' portrayed. He was prone to hysterics - about his own problems primarily - the suffering millions could suffer as long as he was approved of. During his final imprisonment, Bukharin wrote to Stalin offering to do anything, put his name to anything, if only Stalin would be his 'friend' again. Stalin takes all the heat and deserves plenty but many of the rest seem like innocents, fooled by him, finding out too late that they were caught up in his evil and corrupted or destroyed by it. But Stalin, like Hitler and any other dictator, was only possible because those around him saw advantage for themselves in supporting him. If there's a problem with this film it's that it lets some of Stalin's minions off the hook. It settles for extremes - Stalin and his chiefs of secret police on the one hand, and the good or loyal but naive on the other. But the only innocents were the people of the former Soviet Union, those far from power whose lives were destroyed according to the requirements of a command economy - so many deaths and so many slaves were required from every walk of life, like so many tons of iron, to meet quotas. (They are acknowledged in the film's dedication). Those around Stalin, however, were all up to their elbows in blood just as he was, obsessed with their own positions, Bukharin, Zinoviev, and Kamanev included. This is perhaps something to bear in mind in watching a generally excellent and historically accurate film. If you're interested in the psychology of Stalin and his henchmen try Jack Gold's 'Red Monarch' (1983) with Colin Blakely as Stalin. The history comes second to the general impression in that film but it's worth the sacrifice. Duvall as Stalin is marvellous in a deadly serious way, but Blakely is bloody marvellous in a deadly funny way. Red Monarch also spares the audience English peppered with 'Da' to remind you that these people are really speaking Russian, and faked Eastern-European accents.