Child 44

Child 44

Starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman, Joel Kinnaman

Directed by Daniel Espinosa

The Story:
In the Ukraine in the 1930s, young Leo Demidov is orphaned when his parents died during the Holodomor famine.  He is adopted into a Russian military family, and grows up to become a war hero when he brandishes the Soviet flag after the battle of Reichstag in 1945.  Now a war hero and decorated military leader, Leo (Tom Hardy) sets out to find traitors of the U.S.S.R., and serves as one of the finest soldiers in the Soviet army.

He is married to Raisa (Noomy Rapace), a woman who at first gave him a fake name, but now is a dutiful wife and teacher.  That is, until a traitor Leo captures names her as a spy.  Conflicted with what to do, Leo stands by his wife, and both are deported to Volsk to work as laborers under General Nesterov (Gary Oldman), and Leo discovers a web of deceit among the Soviets - led by war coward Vasili (Joel Kinnaman), who pines for Leo's life, and especially his wife.

The Story, Part II:
As Leo captures traitors of the Soviets, his fellow soldier's son is found dead.  In Russia, there's a saying - "There is no murder in paradise."  So, even though it's clearly evident to Leo, the child's father, and the coroner, the death is ruled accidental.

After Leo is deported, he discovers that another child has been found murdered along the same train tracks, and convinces General Nesterov to look more deeply into the happenings.  They discover that there's been a string of child killings along those tracks, and the latest child is child 44.

Leo goes back to Moscow with Raisa to find information on the supposed killer, but they're tracked down by Vasili and his men.  They head back to Volsk and begin unraveling the mystery in hopes of bringing a serial child killer to justice.

The Synopsis:
As you see, there are two stories going on at the same time in "Child 44."  If the film was a five-hour epic (as director Espinosa had done originally), it would've been a great noir film.  Instead, both stories get cut drastically short, the editing becomes jumbled, and the entire film turns out to be nothing more than a whodunit film with a political background.

Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace are two of today's most talented actors, and they both give it their all in this mismashed mess.   The two of them give great performances, along with the ever-amazing Gary Oldman, but it's not enough to save the film from the follies it created.  If the film had just centered on Leo and Raisa's story about clearing her name as a spy, or centered just on Leo trying to unravel the serial killer case, then it would've been fantastic.  However, as I said earlier, the director tried to tell two full-length stories into one moderate-running film.  That led to the detriment of everyone involved, including the viewer.

The other big negative the film produces is with the Russian accents.  If you're going to have a film based in Russia, you should cast Russian actors, if you wish to make it more realistic and have the characters talking with a Russian dialect.  I've never been one to complain watching a film where people are supposed to be foreigners, yet speak perfect English.  I appreciate it, because I could understand what they're saying.  With "Child 44," each actor clearly struggles with maintaining their accent, and it leads to a lot of muffled dialogues, where you have to put up the subtitles to actually understand what's going on, and that takes away from the punch the film seemed to want to deliver.

The final negative is that the film is based off a book by Tom Rob Smith, which, apparently, is far superior than the film.  I hardly ever read the books before I see the films, and everyone always says the book is better than the film, and in this case, I would agree.  Reading the synopsis of the book, I understood what the director was trying to convey, but to appropriately accomplish that goal, the film would had to have been split into two films to fully grasp the gravity of the situation.  As it was, it just seved as Cliff-notes to a far superior original work.

The Summary:
"Child 44" could've been great if it had centered on creating one fantastic story, instead of trying to mesh two stories into one.

The Score: B-