Child 44

2015 • 137 minutes

About this movie

After a friend's son is found dead, Soviet secret-police officer Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy) suspects his superiors are covering up the truth. When Leo dares to raise questions, he is demoted and exiled to a provincial outpost with his wife (Noomi Rapace). There, Leo soon discovers other mysterious deaths with similar circumstances and convinces his new boss (Gary Oldman) that a deranged serial killer is on the loose—and must be stopped before he strikes again in this electrifying thriller.

Ratings and reviews

It's a confusing story with too many plot lines and too many distractions. The broken English of the actors makes the dialog seem forced. The overall premise is promising but unfortunately, the actual movie just doesn't make it. The movie does portray a rather grim and hopeless world of the USSR in the 50's. I'm glad I wasn't born in that part of the world. Overall, I would have to say it's a movie you can miss and really not shed a tear.

The fact that they spoke english in 1950s RUSSIAN story ( reminded me too much of the Tom Cruise flop Valkyrie where NAZIs spoke English well)was hard enough but this film failed at building any real emotional interest between the characters and the viewers. I wanted more than anything for this film to work but It didnt ever come together to form anything more than another bad attempt at trying to recreate the magic of a book on film.

Reminded me of the malaise, wandering pace and style of Schindler's List, but not nearly as good of course. Plus, the two main plots work against each other, which begs the question, why is the banishment even necessary?