Child 44 (film)

Child 44

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Daniel Espinosa
Produced by
Screenplay by Richard Price
Based on Child 44 
by Tom Rob Smith
Starring
Music by Jon Ekstrand
Cinematography Philippe Rousselot
Edited by Dylan Tichenor
Production
company
Distributed by Lionsgate
Release dates
  • April 17, 2015
Running time
 137 minutes
Country
  • United States
  • United Kingdom
  • Czech Republic
  • Romania
Language English
Budget $50 million[1]
Box office $3.2 million[2]

Child 44 is a 2015 American-British mystery thriller film directed by Daniel Espinosa, written by Richard Price, and based on Tom Rob Smith's novel Child 44 (2008). The film stars Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman, Paddy Considine, Jason Clarke, and Vincent Cassel. It was released on 17 April 2015.[3]

Plot

During Stalin's rule of the Soviet Union in the early 1950s, disgraced Ministry of State Security (MGB) Agent Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy) uncovers a strange and brutal series of child murders by a serial killer whom everyone claims does not exist because it is Soviet doctrine that capitalism creates serial killers, not communism.

Cast

Production

Principal photography began in June 2013 in Prague, Ostrava, Kladno Czech Republic.[4]

Release

On 15 April 2015, the Russian film distributor Central Partnership announced that the film would be withdrawn from cinemas in Russia, although some media stated that screening of the film was blocked by the Russian Ministry of Culture.[5][6][7] The decision was made following the press screening the day before. The Ministry of Culture and the Central Partnership issued a joint press release stating that the screening of the film before the 70th anniversary of the Victory Day was unacceptable.[8] The Ministry of Culture claimed that it received several questions on the film's contents, primarily concerning "distortion of historical facts, peculiar treatment of events before, during and after the Great Patriotic War and images and characters of Soviet people of that era".[8] Russian minister of culture Vladimir Medinsky welcomed the decision, but stressed that it was made solely by the Central Partnership. However, in his personal statement Medinsky complained that the film depicts Russians as "physically and morally base sub-humans", and compared the depiction of Soviet Union in the film with J. R. R. Tolkien's Mordor, and wished that such films should be screened neither before the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War, nor any other time.[9] However, he also stated that the film would be available in Russia on DVD and online.[10]

As a result of the decision the film was also withdrawn from cinemas in Belarus,[11] Ukraine,[12] Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, while release of the film has been postponed until October in Georgia.[13]

Ukrainian film director and producer Alexander Rodnyansky criticized the decision not to release Child 44 as bad for the country's film industry. "Before, films where Soviet and Russian heroes were presented not in the best way have been released in Russia, but nothing similar happened. Now everything to do with history should clearly fit into a kind of framework set by the culture ministry."[14]

Reception

Critical response to Child 44 ranged from mixed to negative. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 23%, based on 64 reviews, with an average rating of 4.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "There's a gripping story at the heart of Child 44 and a solid performance from Tom Hardy in the lead, but it all still adds up to a would-be thriller that lacks sufficient thrills."[15] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 41 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[16]

Andy Lea of the Daily Star Sunday gave Child 44 three stars out of five. He wrote that "the film is less than a sum of its parts" and is "a little bogged down with subplots". However, Lea said that Hardy "is excellent in the lead role" and Espinosa "crafts some brilliant individual scenes".[17]

Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw gave the film 2 stars out of 5 and reported that "Tom Rob Smith’s page-turning bestseller from 2008 has been turned into a heavy, indigestible meal of a film, full of actors speaking English with vyery hyeavy Ryussian accyents – actors from England, Sweden, Lebanon, Poland, Australia, almost anywhere but Russia". Bradshaw added that, "Tom Hardy brings his robust, muscular presence to the role of Leo and he is watchable enough, but the forensic and psychological aspects are just dull; there is no fascination in the detection process. […] Everything is immersed in a cloudy brown soup".[18] Also in The Guardian, reviewer Phil Hoad wrote that: "Child 44 has a fascinating premise and setting [but] failed to convincingly package this as either an upscale thriller along the lines of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, as implied by a powerhouse cast also featuring Gary Oldman, Noomi Rapace and Paddy Considine; or as something racier à la The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Gone Girl (indeed, the film itself falls awkwardly between these two stools)". Hoad added, "As for the debacle over the Slavic-slathered English spoken by the entire cast, it further highlights the uncertainty about whether Child 44 was intended for the multiplex or the arthouse. Presumably a decision made to placate the former, opting to turn the film into an Iron Curtain version of ’Allo ’Allo damaged its integrity. Aren’t we past this kind of cultural bastardisation? It is possible for foreign-language films to cross over: The Lives of Others, which meted out its own totalitarian intrigue in German, took $66m overseas – the kind of cash Child 44 will never see".[19]

In The Observer, Jonathan Romney found that: “In writer Richard Price’s boil-down of the labyrinthine original, the whodunit loses all momentum” adding that “the whole thing is scuppered by having everyone speak in borscht-thick Russian accents” before concluding that, "[the film is] shot in several shades of Volga mud and drags like a Thursday afternoon in Nizhniy Novgorod".[20]

References

  1. ↑ "Child 44 - Box Office Data". The Numbers. 2015. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  2. ↑ "Child 44 (2015)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  3. ↑ Yamato, Jen (18 February 2014). "Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace Thriller 'Child 44' Gets April 2015 Date". Deadline.com. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  4. ↑ "Filming of Tom Rob Smith's Child 44 begins". Curtis Brown. 6 August 2013. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
  5. ↑ Davis, Mark (15 April 2015). "Russia bans film adaptation of ‘Child 44’". Euronews.com. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  6. ↑ Walker, Shaun (15 April 2015). "Hollywood's 'Child 44' pulled in Russia after falling foul of culture ministry". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  7. ↑ Barraclough, Leo (16 April 2015). "Russia Bans ‘Child 44′ for Portraying Soviets as a ‘Bloody Mass of Orcs and Ghouls’". Variety. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Совместное заявление Министерства культуры РФ и компании "Централ Партнершип"" [Joint Statement of the Ministry of Culture and the company "Central Partnership"]. Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation (in Russian). 15 April 2015. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  9. ↑ "Заявление Министра культуры РФ В.Р.Мединского. К отзыву прокатной заявки фильма "No.44"" [Statement by the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation V.R.Medinskogo. To review the application of the film "No. 44"]. Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation (in Russian). 15 April 2015. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  10. ↑ "Not In Cinemas, But 'Child 44' Will Be Available in Russia". The Moscow Times. 17 April 2015. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
  11. ↑ "Belarus bans Child 44 movie day after Russia". TASS. 16 April 2015. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  12. ↑ "Hollywood movie 'Child 44' will not be shown in Ukraine". Ukraine Today. 17 April 2015. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  13. ↑ Holdsworth, Nick (17 April 2015). "'Child 44' Ban Rolls Out Across Former Soviet States". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
  14. ↑ Surganov, Elizabeth; Sobolev, Sergei (15 April 2015). "Голливудский фильм про СССР сняли с российского проката" [Hollywood movie about the Soviet Union withdrawn from the Russian market]. RBC (in Russian). Retrieved 18 April 2015.
  15. ↑ "Child 44". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
  16. ↑ "Child 44". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  17. ↑ Lea, Andy (12 April 2015). "Review: Child 44 (15) is 'solid but over-stuffed'". Daily Star Sunday. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  18. ↑ Bradshaw, Peter (16 April 2015). "Child 44 review – where did the thrills go?". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  19. ↑ Hoad, Phil (22 April 2015). "How is Tom Hardy's $50m Child 44 such a totalitarian fail? : Off to the gulag". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  20. ↑ Romney, Jonathan (19 April 2015). "And the rest…: Child 44". The Observer (The New Review section) (London). p. 29. Retrieved 23 April 2015.

External links