It could have been better. So why the 10? Stalin is sort of human. People like him, like Hitler, like so many other embodiments of evil are exceedingly easy to dehumanize, to make them a devil and not a man.
Stalin does a pretty decent job of showing the blindingly evil side of the man and still giving him a human feel. It makes him accessible.
So why could it have been better? Stalin was a revolutionary. He was active from the start and played a major role on the Bolshevik side. He was the Soviet premier and he forced a backwards nation to industrialize in a single generation and that is a global record in itself. He fought WWII and crippled the Nazi war machine at the battle of Kursk.
The movie should have been an epic. There is a much greater story to tell there. Instead it is tourniqueted. It is cut short and anyone with even a simple enough grasp of Stalin to vaguely know who he is gets the feeling that they are missing out.
They made Che, years later, into two epic films. A life as important--and evil--of Stalin deserved more than a made-for-TV movie despite the quality.
Stalin does a pretty decent job of showing the blindingly evil side of the man and still giving him a human feel. It makes him accessible.
So why could it have been better? Stalin was a revolutionary. He was active from the start and played a major role on the Bolshevik side. He was the Soviet premier and he forced a backwards nation to industrialize in a single generation and that is a global record in itself. He fought WWII and crippled the Nazi war machine at the battle of Kursk.
The movie should have been an epic. There is a much greater story to tell there. Instead it is tourniqueted. It is cut short and anyone with even a simple enough grasp of Stalin to vaguely know who he is gets the feeling that they are missing out.
They made Che, years later, into two epic films. A life as important--and evil--of Stalin deserved more than a made-for-TV movie despite the quality.