Review of Child 44 (2015) by Harry W — 18 Dec 2015

As with any film led by Tom Hardy, Child 44 demanded my viewing.

One of the few good qualities of Child 44 is the scenery. Due to the context of the story being set in the Ukranian S.S.R. during the 1950's, the film requires very specific scenery to establish its time period and setting. With a large budget, Child 44 has no difficulty establishing that. The film effectively comes off as convincing of its context, but the visual experience of it is ultimately of mixed quality. This is because the lighting in the film really blunts the experience. Much of the film plays out at night or in dark rooms and so only selective quantities of light can actually be used for the sake of realism and intended tension. Since no other part of the film works all that well to make Child 44 intense, it has little more effect. The majority of the film is very monochromatic in its grim darkness, and this is of no atmospheric benefit to the film but rather damages the potential for visual coherence which is a shame considering the film maintains solid cinematography, production design and costumes.

And like the colour scheme of the film, Child 44's story is incredibly dull. While the story has a lot of potential given the socioeconomic historical context of it all, there is little that actually gets done with it before the film reverts back to its blank simplicity of endlessly circulating its generic roots. The result is simply a whodunit thriller so short on thrills that the viewer is unlikely to care who has done anything, wasting the talents of a skilful cast in a film which could have done a lot more with its large budget. Though there are occasional sparks of interest in the dialogue, the story itself is ultimately a massive stretch which becomes too focused on the repetitive plot dynamics to put any sensible level of focus into the characterization. Even though the cast in Child 44 are among the few things holding the film together at all, director Daniel Espinosa fails to acknowledge that and lets his film take on a meandering and ultimately unsuccessful course. He seems fairly separated from the material since there is little sense of creative direction in the film, seemingly as if he hopes the film will take its own course and find the promised land in the process. The simple fact is that since there is way more potential than what is utilized in the film, this approach is not beneficial to Child 44. It may have been more acceptable on the director's prior action thriller Safe House (2012), but there is depth at the heart of the story in Child 44 which is never found because Daniel Espinosa never bothers to look for it.

The generic story ends up dragging on at a slow pace without thrills or compelling characters before ultimately stretching itself into a running time of 137 minutes. If viewers can honestly last that long then kudos, but for me I found that I had internally shut down by about 40 minutes into the film and simply waited out the remaining hour with a strict focus on trying to identify the extent of Tom Hardy's acting skills the entire time. As expected, they were in great amount.

Tom Hardy is unsurprisingly singled out as the greatest aspect of Child 44 which comes as no surprise, and though his standard for acting is high calibre he still continues to impress me on all different levels. In the case of Child 44, it is his flawless Russian accent which serves as his most impressive quality. Though the story around him is uninvolving, Tom Hardy is quite the opposite. The standard for acting from a performer as talented as him is very high, and he lives up to it in Child 44 by getting proudly lost in the role. Unlike the story, Tom Hardy remains far from repetitive by finding ways to challenge himself in an exploration of his role. He channels all kinds of emotions into Child 44's narrative and manages to match the intended mood at every moment, captivating the interests of viewers with factors as major as his tone of voice or as minor as his facial expressions. Tom Hardy single handily ensures that Child 44 is worth viewing, and though it could be argued that his time could have been spent making a better film, the simple fact is that as a chance to prove his talents in portraying a Russian Ministry of State Executive, Child 44 provides Tom Hardy another chance to branch out and please his fans.

Gary Oldman is also a solid cast member. The accomplished actor is the kind of man who never lets audiences down no matter what he appears in, and Child 44 is no exception. It is particularly great to see him in this film because he established previously that he has a natural skill for a Russian accent in the action-thriller classic Air Force One (1996), and he brings that back in Child 44. His talents may end up underutilized, but he personally ensures that there is no limitation of them within the limited material of Child 44. Gary Oldman is a solid supporting cast member.

Working with Tom Hardy once again after the two made a powerful duo in The Drop (2014), Noomi Rapace heavily repeats herself in Child 44, for better and for worse. The negative side of things is that she is given a poor character with little to do, but the more positive narrative aspects can be credited to the fact that she naturally manages to capture the vulnerability of her character and share an effective chemistry with Tom Hardy in the process. Charles Dance is also a notable presence.

So Child 44 does have a talented cast to boot and some decent production values, but both these qualities are blunted by poor lighting and a dull, repetitive story which fails to take advantage of the potential in its story context.