Directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House) and starring Tom Hardy (Inception, Star Trek: Nemesis, Locke, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Dark Knight Rises), Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Prometheus), Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Dark Knight, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) and Paddy Considine (In America, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (tv series), The Bourne Ultimatum, Cinderella Man).
Drama; 137 mins; 16+
Based on the novel by Tom Rob Smith, the first of a triology, Child 44 is set in Ukraine during the Stalinist regime in Russia. Most people live in fear in a state of oppression which is harrowingly conveyed onto the big screen.
Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy) escapes from an orphanage and joins the army. Later, in defending his wife Raisa (Noomi Rapace) against whom charges have been levied, they are banished to Volsk, an industrial town where workers are almost slaves, a severe demotion for the man who tries to do the right thing. While there, he reports to General Mikhail Nesterov (Gary Oldman).
The film is over two hours long and the first half sets the scene for the film to come alive in the second hour. Not that the first half is boring, it's not, it's just that there are so many pieces to to jigsaw that they all need to be fit together to make sense of the larger picture.
One part of the film is a love story, between Leo and Raisa, and how their love grows despite the setting and all that is happening around them. The second part is an investigation into a serial killer, who murders young boys whose bodies are discovered close to railway lines. When Leo learns of such a murder happening in Volsk soon after his arrival, he links it to the murder of a child of a friend in Moscow, the 44th such killing. He convinces General Nesterov to go along with his theory and sets out to solve the crimes, eventually leading to the arrest of Vladimir Malevich (Paddy Considine).
One of his first challenges is to go against common thinking that supposedly this sort of crime does not exist in the Soviet Union, so his views of a child murderer and a serial killer go against the regime's way of thinking.
While the Russian accents may not seem that authentic, it is always difficult to submerse oneself 100% in the film when the actors are speaking English with a foreign accent, instead of speaking the original language, translated by sub-titles. Nevertheless, the acting in Child 44 is top notch, led from the top by Tom Hardy.
A gripping film, particularly in the second half, which covery the sense of feat and oppression prevalent during that ere, but where determination, goodness and love surmount evil. A dark film on a dark theme but very well executed indeed.
