|
|
Article: HBO's `Stalin' is mostly silly
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- November 21, 1992
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1992 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
MOSCOW -- "Stalin," which airs tonight (8 p.m. on HBO), has
one redeeming feature: Robert Duvall's penetrating performance as the
Soviet dictator.
Otherwise, it is a profoundly silly movie.
Its message is that Joseph Stalin was a monster. Beyond
that, it has little to say.
Those who know some history will find the point both truistic
and trivializing.
Those who have only dimly heard of such matters will find
themselves lost amid the abrupt entrances and exits of Trotsky,
Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamanev, Kirov and the like, who come off here as
interchangeable ciphers.
No effort is made to explain who these people were, how their
views differed from Stalin's, or ...