Child 44 (2015) (English Language)

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Review

137min

Cast: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman…and more

Former war hero and MGB (Soviet secret police) agent Leo Demidov is a top operator in Stalin’s Soviet internal security service but when he is betrayed by the system he worked to maintain he is sent far from Moscow in disgrace, as a series of brutal child murders seem to follow his tracks he must tread a dangerous path to find the truth, a path that threatens to expose corruption and state control that does not acknowledge the existence of murder in “paradise”.

Tom Hardy (Bronson, The Dark Knight Rises) stars as Demidov in Swedish director Daniel Espinosa’s adaptation of Tom Rob Smith’s bestselling novel, like any film adaptation ‘Child 44′ has hurdles to overcome and the first one is the much discussed issue of “accents”.

‘Child 44′ features a very strong cast of British, American and European actors who deliver lines in English but in a rather stereotypical “Russian-speaking-English” accent, there was bound to be criticism whether they chose to use their own accents or learned Russian for the role thereby sacrificing all box-office potential, only Hardy’s “bond-villain” style accent is particularly distracting and if you can’t get past it then this film will not be for you.

At first glance this films seems like a mix of classic spy drama and detective murder-mystery set in the backdrop of an oppressive Stalinist Soviet Union but as the film progresses it’s clear to see that the backdrop is actually the heart of the piece.

Director Daniel Espinosa paints a visually impressive but dark and grim depiction of a Stalin-era Soviet Union and the film makes great efforts to expose the brutality of the state security apparatus in stifling dissent, but it does so at the expense of a more rounded and compelling story.

The mystery of the murder storyline quickly disappears when the killer is revealed as soon as the story starts to move away from the political angle and the two stories seem to conveniently and unconvincingly converge.

Not enough thrills to be a true thriller and not enough intrigue for an effective mystery, ‘Child 44′ is a stylish and compelling drama that smacks of triumphalism & Western anti-communist propaganda from 25 years ago, a story that in the right hands could have been a fascinating Fincher-like mystery/thriller.

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