Talent fails to spark sluggish ‘Child 44’
Soviet politics crash up against the hunt for a serial killer in the uneven Child 44.
More interesting than the oppressive political regime in 1953 Soviet Russia or the tale of a depraved child killer is the crisis of conscience of top-level Stalinist secret police agent Leo Demidov, played masterfully by Tom Hardy.
Unfortunately, Leo is the only well-developed character in a handsomely mounted but tedious drama with an impressive international cast.
We meet Leo as an orphaned Ukrainian boy, see him briefly as a World War II hero and then as a highly placed Soviet operative in an era of rampant paranoia. When he tells the story at a dinner party of how he met his schoolteacher wife, Raisa (Noomi Rapace), he’s clearly besotted. Raisa’s emotions, however, are muted.
The reason for her reserve soon surfaces, but it’s somewhat anticlimatic.
Leo’s godson is found brutally killed near the railroad tracks. The state’s official version labels his death an accident. “There is no murder in paradise,” Leo and other key players in the system remind each other repeatedly.
With his faith in the system already eroding, the principled Leo is asked by a senior officer, Major Kuzmin (Vincent Cassel) to denounce his wife as a spy. She may or may not be one, and Leo refuses, though it means career suicide — and possibly worse.
The story is at its best when focused on the untrustworthiness of Moscow politicians. Then, it switches gears midstream and tries to become a creepy David Fincher-style murder mystery.
In his adaptation of Tom Rob Smith’s novel, director Daniel Espinosa’s sluggish narrative wavers from exploring the final years of the Stalinist regime and settles into a predictable Russian-accented CSI episode.