Review of Fail Safe (1964) by Benjamin N — 04 Oct 2014

Kubrick was right, as usual; this story works better as a black comedy. Though Lumet's direction is typically excellent, the po-faced self-seriousness, particularly in the third act, works against the film's own intentions and makes it hard to take it seriously anyway, especially with Walter Matthau wandering around making an ass of himself.

Obviously I liked it, especially in the beautiful, textbook setup, but it does in the end kind of just re-emphasise for me how much of a genius Stanley Kubrick was.