The Trotsky

Watching The Trotsky, I didn’t know quite what to expect. I knew it was a comedy, and I knew it was going to heavily reference Communist history. Other than that, I had no idea what I was about to watch. But, in these times especially, a film we go blind into may be just what we need for something refreshing. I’ll start off with what’s great in this movie, the script. Clearly, the writers of this movie did plenty of research and had a very good grasp on how films are structured. The beats of the film are at necessary points, the comedy is good, and each of the characters are well written with clear arcs. But, at least for me, that’s where the great things about this movie. Don’t get me wrong when I say that, everything in this movie is fine, but given how good the script is, I feel that it deserved more. Starting my complaints would be the look of The Trotsky. Due to the history behind this, it feels that they should have been much more creative with the colour pallet, using a lot of red, because, you know, Russia. Instead, someone thought it was a good idea to completely wash out the film of colour. And, no, this isn’t the whole “artistic black and white,” rather, there is colour, but it’s all just really bland. I should also note that although they got some fairly good actors in this, a lot of the chemistry, and even the way that dialogue was read, was off. Those are the things that I hated about this film. But, there’s definitely a lot of mediocre as well. For example, the score is mediocre. At times, the score will come in with an epic Russian choir, but soon, it’s dried out by stereotypical teen pop music in the background, which was also a disappointing problem. Also, there were a few shots that, clearly, the director had fun with. For example, there’s one scene where everyone’s coming into the Social Justice Dance, and the principal gets mad, because he’s the principal. As he turns his head, the shot compares him to a dictator, which was a brilliant and creative shot that I wish this film had done more. So, while I praise the script and a lot of its brilliance, the rest of the film is kind of mediocre at best. There is so much to love in this movie, but a lot more is lacking. 7.4/10