Not the ideal Russian political satire.

I remember my late grandfather commenting on my review of “The Death of Stalin,” suggesting that I thought Lavrentiy Beria, the Marshall of the Soviet Union, was smart. And I told him I said “The actor who played him was smart.” That 2018 film was a satire that knew the targets and actors to have fun and take their historic characters seriously. “The Wizard of the Kremlin” is also a political satire that has everyone speaking English, but it’s too long and uneven for it to stay completely focused on itself.

Think of the targets of “Dr. Strangelove,” think about what Stanley Kubrick has accomplished, and think about what it represents. That was a comedy that knew how to lampoon politics. I don’t even think “The Wizard of the Kremlin” is a comedy, as it tries to take itself seriously and crams too many situations and complications into one movie. And even though I try to get into the world of politics, I wasn’t laughing. I just thought a Larry King lookalike during his famous Putin interview was a little appealing like he looks more like a young Elvis Costello, but that’s about it.

The narrator and journalist Rowland (Jeffrey Wright) mentions that Vladimir Putin was known as “The Wizard of the Kremlin” or “The New Rasputin” or just “the Tsar.” He also mentions that he took a sabbatical from Yale to study and do a biography on Yevgeny Zamyatin, a Russian author who became a Bolshevik. That’s when he crosses paths with Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), a businessman inspired by Vladislav Surkov, who tells him his life story.

We see Vadim in his youth doing a play of the celebrated journalist Dimitri Sidorov (Tom Sturridge), having a relationship problem with Ksenia (Alicia Vikander), and going to a lot of parties Okay. I’m not seeing where any of this is going, as they go on way too long. Then, we see him as a TV producer and soon entering the world of Russian politics kudos to the business oligarch Boris Berezovsky (Will Keen). That’s when Jude Law comes in as Vladimir Putin, and that’s when Vadim collaborates with him.

With some arrival footage and some dramatization, we also speculate the war between Russia and Ukraine, as well as the Pussy Riot and a motorcycle gang-the Night Wolves-led by Alexander Zaldastanov (Latvian former basketball player Kaspars Kambala). And every thing that life has thrown at Putin and Vadim takes place between the 90s and the 2010s.

Based on Giuliano da Empoli’s book and co-written and directed by Olivier Assayas, “The Wizard of the Kremlin” allows Law to deliver his mannerisms into Putin and Wright to narrate his intro with some consistency. So, these two performances are able to thrive over a shallow screenplay. But as much as I love Dano, he seems flat and one-sided as Vadim. We see him in different time periods and he basically looks and sounds the same age. I was thinking back to how better Dev Patel was in “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” but that film knew the targets if it was going to be a satire. This role doesn’t really justify Dano.

I still say the better movies of its kind are “Dr. Strangelove” and “The Death of Stalin,” because they both know what they were going for and they speak for any generation as they deal with similar worldly issues. “The Wizard of the Kremlin” has too many flying monkeys in its script for us to stay focused.