Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Noomi Rapace and the awesomely named Fares Fares round off a talented cast in the movie Child 44. Thick Russian accents abound as Tom Hardy plays Leo, a post WWII MP in the USSR in this gritty thriller.
The film starts with a couple of flashbacks of his childhood and plonks you straight into the action after that - as he traipses around his patch looking for suspected traitors. Much of the first part of the film is like this - and sort of plods along showing him do his duty and making friends and enemies along the way. However when a child of his friend and colleague is killed, it all points to murder. However, "there is no murder in paradise" so much to his stoic friends disappointment, he has to conceded that it was a tragic accident even though everyone knows the child was murdered. Not much else is given to this storylien for what seems like ages until conveniently Leo's wife, Raisa (Noomi Rapace) is suspected of being a traitor. After pretending to be pregnant, Leo is forced to flee with her to a neighbouring town where he reassigned under a new boss General Nesterov (Gary Oldman). While there he finds another dead child who has all the hallmarks of the killing of the son of his friends. The guys back at Moscow think they have already apprehended the killer by accusing a gay man and when the aforementioned fella throws himself under a train they think it's all over. However, we are now two thirds of the way through a very long movie and it shifts over to CSI: Moscow 1953, where it almost shifts genre too. The killer is still out there and Raisa and Leo must find him before another child is killed. By the way, this killer has killed 44 children. I wonder where they got the title from?
The film is generally good - the acting is spot on even though the thick Russian accents sometimes make it hard for them to be understood on some occasions. It's a gritty thriller and the cinematography and soundtrack are both well done and fit the occasion quite nicely. The one point where the movie falls down is the story. It's based on a book and has been adapted for the screen but there's a serious lack of character development for a start. It wasn't clear on who was who and sometimes you relied on the character to tell you - of which sometimes they didn't until a few scenes later (prime example - Leo's parents). The movie is quite long and the first 7/10ths of it is quite monotonous with Leo literally doing his job and it's not until he is disgraced that it started to change into something more interesting. But this is it - why was he disgraced and what exactly is going on in the movie? I was so confused I just let it happen. I don't know why Leo took it upon himself to solve the mystery of the child killer, I don't know why people wanted to disgrace him, I don't know why a lot in this movie. The killer isn't even developed much so we don't even know why he wants to kill children.
So if I had to put this down to a conclusion I would have to say this movie is alright, and it has some talented actors in (plus a last (Charles) Dance at the end) but the story is so written that it's confusing, under developed and hard to follow. Maybe it was just me - I had done a double shift at work before going to see this - but maybe it wasn't.
If you've seen it, what do you think? Drop in the comments below.
Child 44 is rated 15 and is out at all good cinemas now.
POPSCORE: 6.5/10
What am I talking about? The movie Child 44
If you like this try: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Kiss the Girls, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Drop
Anything else?
It's based on a novel by Tom Rob Smith called Child 44. These books are part of a trilogy with The Secret Speech and Agent 6 being the two books that follow this one.
