The script, cowritten by Iannucci with David Schneider, Ian Martin and Peter Fellows, doesn't so much joke about
dictatorship as find the very existence of authoritarianism to be one of humanity's sickest, saddest, oldest jokes — a fine distinction, but an important one, because it prevents the film from feeling exploitative,
instead lending it the feeling of a lament
in which the storyteller laughs so that he won't cry.