Review of Child 44 (2015) by Chrissy H — 16 Apr 2015

Beneath Child 44's mess of pacing issues, numerous subplots, almost laughable Foley and overall editing, and bad Russian accents, there is untapped potential with the core story that is based on Tom Rob Smith's novel of the same name. Directed by Daniel Espinosa of Safe House (2012), Child 44 is a billed as a mystery thriller, with the greatest mystery at the end of its two hours of runtime being how the movie lacks any actual thrills.

As always, Hardy plays the hell out of his role as Leo Demidov, an orphan-turned-World War II war hero that begins to grow disillusioned of the Soviet Union following a series of events that has him questioning his loyalties all while chasing down a serial killer, an action that causes him to be persecuted as it goes against the oft-repeated Stalinist propaganda that "There is no murder in paradise" because if Demidov's superiors admit that children are being murdered secretly en masse, that would put a dent on the country's image of being free of murder as only the country of capitalists have murder.

There are deep issues of corruption, political cover-ups, nationalism, cannibalism and poverty - among others - that Child 44 is peppered with, but unfortunately most of these are unrealized and lazily strung together as the narrative hobbles from one act to the next, with the crutches that hold the movie up from falling face first into the ground - despite the bad Russian accents - proving to be the performance of everyone from Hardy to Noomi Rapace - playing Demidov's wife, Raisa -, to Gary Oldman's Timur Nesterov, Demidov's 'partner' in finding the killer, and to Demidov's psychotic pursuer and Russian officer, Joel Kinnaman's Vasili Nikitin.

Under the hands of someone that is able to tackle darkness and emotion - like Fincher -, Child 44 would be a truly cutting, depressing look at Stalinist Russia, and the source material would be well-utilized and fully realized, but Espinosa's haphazard direction turns the movie into a dull, protracted experience that moves on a singular trajectory consisting of yawns and groans. Suddenly it makes sense why Child 44 was pushed back from last year to this year.