Sunday, May 15, 2016

Review of Dr Strangelove

Somehow I've never got round to seeing this, so I was grateful for the chance to watch it in the Middle Floor at Springhill.

It's horrible, though not in a bad way. Although it's billed as a black comedy there aren't many laughs. It's mainly a believable story about how a rogue air force general goes nuts and starts the slide towards a nuclear war, which then can't be stopped by any human agency.

It's very anti-military, and also quite anti-American. The Russians are largely invisible - the Soviet premier is on the end of a phone line but we don't hear his voice, and the Russian ambassador is mainly decent, though he does take pictures of everything in the secret war room. The Americans are bureaucratic, at least slightly mad, and sex-crazed. I don't think a film like this could be made now, though I suppose 'In the Loop' wasn't all that far off, particularly in the way it portrayed the relationship between the sensible but ineffectual Brits and the crazy but powerful Americans.

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