''Child 44'' is a 2015 mystery

thriller Thriller may refer to: * Thriller (genre), a broad genre of literature, film and television ** Thriller film, a film genre under the general thriller genre Comics * ''Thriller'' (DC Comics), a comic book series published 1983–84 by DC Comics i ...

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

directed by

Daniel Espinosa Jorge Daniel Espinosa (born 23 March 1977) is a Swedish film director from Trångsund, Stockholm, of Chilean origin. Early life He attended the National Film School of Denmark and graduated in 2001. Career His third feature film, '' Easy Mone ...

, written by

Richard Price Richard Price (23 February 1723 – 19 April 1791) was a British moral philosopher, Nonconformist minister and mathematician. He was also a political reformer, pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the French ...

, and based on Tom Rob Smith's 2008 novel of the same name. The film stars an

ensemble cast In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that is composed of multiple principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17 Structure In contrast t ...

featuring Tom Hardy,

Gary Oldman Gary Leonard Oldman (born 21 March 1958) is an English actor and filmmaker. Known for his versatility and intense acting style, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three British Academy F ...

Noomi Rapace Noomi Rapace (; ; born 28 December 1979) is a Swedish actress.Karen Olsson, ''The New York Times Magazine'', 27 May 2012, p. 26. She achieved international fame with her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptations of the ''Mil ...

Joel Kinnaman Charles Joel Nordström Kinnaman (; born 25 November 1979) is a Swedish-American actor and model who first gained recognition for his roles in the Swedish film '' Easy Money'' and the '' Johan Falk'' crime series. Kinnaman is known internationa ...

Paddy Considine Patrick George Considine (born 5 September 1973) is an English actor, director, and screenwriter. He frequently collaborates with filmmaker/director Shane Meadows. He has received two British Academy Film Awards, three Evening Standard Brit ...

Jason Clarke Jason Clarke (born 17 July 1969) is an Australian actor. He has appeared in many TV series, and is known for playing Tommy Caffee on the television series '' Brotherhood''. He has also appeared in many films, often as an antagonist. His film r ...

, and

Vincent Cassel Vincent Cassel (; ; born 23 November 1966) is a French actor. He first achieved recognition for his performance as a troubled French Jewish youth in Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 film ''La Haine (Hate)'', for which he received two César Award nom ...

. It was released on 17 April 2015. Both the novel and the film are very loosely based on the case of

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

serial killer

Andrei Chikatilo Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo (russian: Андре́й Рома́нович Чикати́ло, translit=Andréy Románovich Chikatílo; uk, Андрій Романович Чикатило, translit=Andriy Romanovych Chykatylo; 16 October 1936 ...

. The film was a

box office bomb A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...

, grossing just $13 million against its $50 million budget.

Plot

During Stalin's rule of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

in the early 1950s, Ministry of State Security (MGB) Agent and war hero Leo Demidov uncovers a strange and brutal series of

child murder Pedicide, child murder, child manslaughter, or child homicide is the homicide of an individual who is a minor. Punishment by jurisdiction United States In 2008, there were 1,494 child homicides in the United States. Of those killed, 1,03 ...

s. MGB leadership refuses to acknowledge the deaths as murders, however, because Soviet doctrine states that only capitalism creates serial killers. The son of Leo's partner is murdered by the serial killer, and during Leo's investigation, his wife, Raisa, is accused of being disloyal to the state. Leo suspects that his amoral and ambitious enemy in the MGB, Vasili Nikitin, 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. 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 only agreed to marry him because she feared what would happen to her if she refused a high-ranking member of state security. 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, Inessa, 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 does not bear fruit, however, and to escape possible pursuit by the MGB, they seek out Raisa's former colleague. However, during the meeting Raisa discovers that the colleague is an informer, and Leo kills him. Leo tells Raisa that she can leave him if she wishes, but she says that she wants to stay with him. Leo and Raisa return to Volsk, but there they discover that Vasili and his men have pursued them for killing the informer. They are arrested and interrogated, then 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 trek 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 Vassili, who has followed Leo and Raisa. Vassili tries to execute them, but after a vicious struggle, they kill Vassili. Leo cleverly tells the MGB agents who arrive that the serial killer killed Vassili 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 orphan girls.

Cast

* Tom Hardy as Captain Leo Demidov *

as General Mikhail Nesterov *

as Raisa Demidova *

as Senior Lieutenant (later Captain) Vasili Nikitin *

as Major Kuzmin *

as Anatoly Brodsky *

as Vladimir Malevich * Josef Altin as Alexander *

Sam Spruell Sam Spruell (born 1 January 1977) is a British actor. He is best known for playing villainous roles in film and television including Oleg Malankov in '' Taken 3'', Finn in '' Snow White and the Huntsman'' and Swarm in '' Doctor Who: Flux''. He a ...

as Doctor Tyapkin *

Ned Dennehy Ned Dennehy (born 8 December 1965) is an Irish actor who has appeared in multiple films and television programmes. He is best known for his role as Mider in ''The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog''. He also appeared in ''Blitz'', ''Harry Potter and t ...

as The Coroner *

Fares Fares Fares Fares (; born 29 April 1973) is a Swedish-Lebanese actor of Assyrian descent. Early life Fares was born in Beirut, Lebanon. His younger brother is director Josef Fares, and he has four sisters. In 1987, when Fares was 14 years old, his ...

as Lieutenant Alexei Andreyev *

Nikolaj Lie Kaas Nikolaj Lie Kaas (; born 22 May 1973) is a Danish actor whose career rose in the 1990s. Kaas graduated from the National Theater School in Denmark in 1998. He first appeared on screen in Søren Kragh-Jacobsen's film ''The Boys from St. Petri'' i ...

as Ivan Sukov *

Mark Lewis Jones Mark Lewis Jones (born 31 August, 1964) is a Welsh actor, whose roles include that of a First Order Captain Moden Canady in '' Star Wars: The Last Jedi'', a police inspector in BBC drama series ''55 Degrees North'', a whaler in the film '' Mast ...

as Tortoise * Anna Rust as Sasha * Xavier Atkins as Pavel * Sonny Ashbourne Serkis as Artur * Kevin Clarke as MGB Agent * Petr Vanek as Fyodor * Max Rowntree as Andrej * David Bowles as Volsk Investigator 2 (uncredited) * Michael Nardone as Semyon Okun * Fedja Stukan as Sergei * Anssi Lindström as Alexander Pickup * Harmon Joseph as Vadim *

Charles Dance Walter Charles Dance (born 10 October 1946) is an English actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters and villains. His most notable film roles include Sardo Numspa in '' The Golden Child'' (1986), Dr. Jonathan Clemens in '' ...

as Major Grachev *

Tara Fitzgerald Tara Anne Cassandra Fitzgerald (born 18 September 1967) is an English actress who has appeared in feature films, television, radio and the stage. She won the New York Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play in 1995 as Opheli ...

as Inessa Nesterova * Samuel Buttery as Varlan Babinic *

Agnieszka Grochowska Agnieszka Grochowska (born 31 December 1979) is a Polish film and theatre actress. Life She was born on 31 December 1979 in Warsaw. She graduated from the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw in 2002. In 2003, she started working at the ...

as Nina Andreeva

Production

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as ...

began in June 2013 in the cities of

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

Ostrava Ostrava (; pl, Ostrawa; german: Ostrau ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic, and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 280,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four rive ...

and

Kladno Kladno (; german: Kladen) is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 67,000 inhabitants. It is the largest city in the region and together with its adjacent suburban areas has a population of more than 110,000. ...

in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, and continued in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. For the brief scene in the Moscow underground, the Prague metro was used. It was the first time in its history that it was shut to the public.

Ban in some former USSR republics

On 15 April 2015, the Russian film distributor

Central Partnership Central Partnership (russian: Централ Партнершип) is a Russian film distribution and production company founded in 1995. The distributor was acquired by Russian gas company Gazprom in 2014. History Central Partnership started ...

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. 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 Victory Day is a commonly used name for public holidays in various countries, where it commemorates a nation's triumph over a hostile force in a war or the liberation of a country from hostile occupation. In many cases, multiple countries may ob ...

was unacceptable. 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 The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Sout ...

and images and characters of Soviet people of that era". Russian minister of culture

Vladimir Medinsky Vladimir Rostislavovich Medinsky (russian: link=no, Владимир Ростиславович Мединский, uk, Володимир Ростиславович Мединський; born July 18, 1970) is a Russian political figure, acad ...

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 John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...

Mordor In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Mordor (pronounced ; from Sindarin ''Black Land'' and Quenya ''Land of Shadow'') is the realm and base of the evil Sauron. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, and to t ...

, 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. However, he also stated that the film would be available in Russia on DVD and online. The film was also withdrawn from cinemas in

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

, and

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. ...

, while release of the film was postponed until October in

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

. Ukrainian film director and producer

Alexander Rodnyansky Alexander Yefymovych Rodnyansky ( uk, Олекса́ндр Юхи́мович Родня́нський, Oleksandr Yukhymovych Rodnianskyi; born July 2, 1961) is a Ukrainian film director, film producer, television executive and businessman. As a me ...

criticised 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." As the

Baltic states The Baltic states, et, Balti riigid or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, ...

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

and

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

were occupied by the Soviet Union and as members of the EU, they officially received the film release.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, ''Child 44'' has an approval rating of 27%, based on 82 reviews, with an average score of 4.82/10. 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." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a score of 41 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Writing in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'',

Peter Bradshaw Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''. Early life and education Bradshaw was educated at Haberdashers ...

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". Also in ''The Guardian'', reviewer Phil Hoad wrote: "''Child 44'' has a fascinating premise and setting utfailed to convincingly package this as either an upscale thriller along the lines of ''

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ''Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'' is a 1974 spy novel by British author John le Carré. It follows the endeavours of taciturn, aging spymaster George Smiley to uncover a Soviet mole in the British Secret Intelligence Service. The novel has receive ...

'', 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 ''The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'' (original title in sv, Män som hatar kvinnor , lit=''Men Who Hate Women'') is a psychological thriller novel by Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson (1954–2004). It was published posthumously in 2 ...

'' or '' Gone Girl'' (indeed, the film itself falls awkwardly between these two stools)". Hoad added, " 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 ''The Lives of Others'' (german: link=no, Das Leben der Anderen, ) is a 2006 German drama film written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck marking his feature film directorial debut. The plot is about the monitoring of East Berl ...

'', which meted out its own

totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regul ...

intrigue in German, took $66m overseas – the kind of cash ''Child 44'' will never see". In ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'', 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, "

he film is He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

shot in several shades of Volga mud and drags like a Thursday afternoon in

Nizhniy Novgorod Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət ), colloquially shortened to Nizhny, from the 13th to the 17th century Novgorod of the Lower Land, formerly known as Gork ...

References

External links

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