Child 44 (2015)

Child 44 is based on the best selling 2008 novel of the same name by English writer Tom Rob Smith. It in turn is inspired by Soviet serial killer Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo who was responsible for the sexual assault, mutilation and murder of 52 woman and children between 1978 and 1990. The story of Child 44 backs dates events however to the immediate post World War II period, with the bulk of the story set shortly after Stalin's deaths in 1953. Ironically the serial killer here is really not that interesting a character himself, he's not given enough screen time or development to become one, he's mostly just a distant monster, we don't even see his face until half way through the movie. The real subject of the story is how the ideological rigidity of the Soviet system complicates bringing the killer to justice. Stalin had apparently claimed publically that murder was a product of the capitalist system and that the crime was simply impossible in the 'paradise' of the Soviet state.

It is largely for that reason that authorities in this movie refuse to see what is right in front of them, that they have a serial killer on the lose. Nobody in a position to do something about this wants to be seen as questioning state dogma and so they turn a blind eye, pass the deaths off as an unfortunate string of accidents, until our protagonist Leo Demidov ( Tom Hardy) a Ukrainian orphan adopted by a prominent family in the 1930's, is unjustly demoted and sent to the sticks for little more then 'thought crime'. With little to lose Leo, his wife Raisa (Noomi Rapace) and a little later a reluctant general played by Gary Oldman, mount there own investigation, with Leo's old rival Vasili Nikitin (Joel Kinnaman) out to subvert them at every turn. All the substance is there, and the actors are good, but for some reason the movie just feels flat, it lacks a certain spark of life to  bring it all together, I don't know if its the direction or the screenplay or what but the movies just too often dull and it really shouldn't have been. I know the ending was suppose to be poignant, and maybe it is in the book, but I just wasn't moved by anything in this film, and so it just wasn't powerful like it insists it is. It's watchable, and its got the Soviet look down, but I just can't be enthusiastic about it, and I really wanted to be. **1/2.