Child 44 (film)

Child 44
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Daniel Espinosa
Produced by	Ridley Scott Michael Schaefer Greg Shapiro
Screenplay by	Richard Price
Based on	Child 44  by Tom Rob Smith
Starring	Tom Hardy Gary Oldman Noomi Rapace Joel Kinnaman Jason Clarke Vincent Cassel
Music by	Jon Ekstrand
Cinematography	Philippe Rousselot
Edited by	Pietro Scalia Dylan Tichenor
Production company	Worldview Entertainment Scott Free Productions
Distributed by	Summit Entertainment/Lionsgate
Release dates	April 17, 2015 (2015-04-17)
Running time	137 minutes
Country	United States United Kingdom Czech Republic Romania Russia
Language	English
Budget	$50 million[1]
Box office	$13 million[2]

Child 44 is a 2015 British-American mystery thriller film directed by Daniel Espinosa, written by Richard Price, and based on Tom Rob Smith's 2008 novel of the same name. 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] to mostly negative reviews, and bombed at the box office. The film appears very loosely based on the case of Andrei Chikatilo, the Soviet serial killer portrayed in the earlier film Citizen X.

Plot

A child is orphaned during the Holodomor in the Ukrainian S.S.R. in the early 1930s during Stalin's rule of the Soviet Union. He runs away from his orphanage and is taken in by Soviet soldiers. They give him the nickname "Leo", and with them he honours himself in battle and becomes a war hero.

In the early 1950s, Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy) is now a Ministry of State Security (MGB) Agent who uncovers a strange and brutal series of child murders. MGB leadership refuses to acknowledge the deaths as murders, because Soviet doctrine states that only capitalism produces serial murder. The son of Leo's partner is murdered by the serial killer and during Leo's investigation, his wife, Raisa (Noomi Rapace), is accused of being disloyal to the state. Leo suspects that his amoral and ambitious enemy in the MGB, Vasili Nikitin (Joel Kinnaman), is behind the charges. Leo refuses to support the accusation, and he is forced to take a demeaning militia position in the town of Volsk. Raisa accompanies him and must work as a janitor.

In Volsk Leo meets his new commander, General Nesterov (Gary Oldman). Meanwhile, Vasili calls Raisa and attempts to persuade her to leave Leo and join him in Moscow. When she refuses, Vasili orders a local MGB man to abuse her. Raisa later admits to Leo that she agreed to marry him because she was afraid to refuse the proposal given his high rank (at the time) within the MGB.

More child murder victims are discovered in Volsk, and after Leo tells Raisa that he suspects a serial killer, she decides to help his investigation. Together they convince Nesterov and his wife that the deaths must be investigated as serial murder. Further investigation reveals that the killer has claimed at least 44 victims and that he is traveling the rail lines to find his targets.

Leo and Raisa travel in secret to Moscow to interview a woman who reported seeing the killer. The interview is unproductive, and to escape possible pursuit by the MGB, they seek out Raisa's former colleague. During the meeting Raisa discovers that the colleague is an informer planning to turn them in to the MGB, and Leo kills him. Leo tells Raisa that she can leave him if she wishes, but she chooses to stay with him.

Leo and Raisa return to Volsk, but there they are arrested by Vasili and his men for the murder of the informer. After being interrogated, Leo and Raisa are put on a train to a work camp. During the train ride, they are attacked by killers at the order of Vasili; after killing their assailants, Leo and Raisa jump off the train. They make their way to Rostov, where the highest concentration of the serial killer's victims has been found; they reason that the killer must work close to the rail yards there.

In the Rostov tractor factory, Leo identifies the killer by cross-referencing worker travel with the location and date of the murders. Leo and Raisa corner the killer, who surrenders to them. However, the killer is suddenly shot in the head by Vasili, who has followed Leo and Raisa. Vasili tries to execute them but after a vicious struggle, they kill Vasili. Leo cleverly tells the MGB agents who arrive that the serial killer killed Vasili and that he then shot the killer. Because the serial killer was a POW in German camps, the MGB is able to (falsely) explain away his actions as those of a Nazi agent.

Leo is reinstated in Moscow. Despite being offered a promising political position, he instead asks to create and lead a homicide division in Moscow. Leo and Raisa adopt two girls who were orphaned by the MGB at the start of the movie.

Cast

Production

Principal photography began in June 2013 in the cities of Prague, Ostrava and Kladno in the Czech Republic, and continued in Romania.^[4] For the brief scene in the Moscow underground, the Prague subway was used. It was the first time in its history that it was shut to the public.^[5][6]

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.^[7][8][9] 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.^[10] 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".^[10] 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.^[11] However, he also stated that the film would be available in Russia on DVD and online.^[12]

As a result of the decision the film was also withdrawn from cinemas in Belarus,^[13] Ukraine,^[14] Kazakhstan,^[15] and Kyrgyzstan, while release of the film has been postponed until October in Georgia.^[16]

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."^[17]

Reception

Critical response to Child 44 was mostly negative. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 25%, based on 71 reviews, with an average rating of 4.7/10. 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."^[18] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 41 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[19]

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".^[20]

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 very heavy Russian accents – actors from England, Sweden, Lebanon, Poland, Australia, almost anywhere but Russia". Bradshaw added: "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".^[21] Also in The Guardian, reviewer Phil Hoad wrote: "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, "[a]s 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".^[22]

In The Observer, Jonathan Romney found, “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".^[23]

References

External links

• Child 44 at the Internet Movie Database