“There is no murder in Paradise.”
Directed by: Daniel Espinosa
Written by: Richard Price (screenplay), Tom Rob Smith (novel)
Starring: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman, Vincent Cassel, Joel Kinnaman
The H-Bomb: In 1950’s Soviet Russia, highly regarded war hero and military police officer, Leo Demidov (Hardy), is demoted and disgraced when he refuses to denounce his schoolteacher wife, Raisa (Rapace), who has been accused of spying for the West. After being transferred to the ass-end of nowhere, Demidov discovers that the body of a young boy has been found in an isolated area, near train tracks.
Because two other young boys were also found dead near train tracks back in Moscow, Demidov’s suspicion is aroused, especially since all three boys share the same cause of death. After paying the matter some thought, Demidov comes to the rather obvious conclusion that they are the victims of a serial killer. His superiors, however, beg to differ, since murder is a sickness of the West, and could never possibly happen here in happy Mother Russia.
Now Demidov, along with his new commander, Nesterov (Oldman), must prove that these boys were in fact murdered, and murdered by the same killer, in order to bring this nasty no-goodnik to justice. All the while, Demidov also must fight to prove that his wife is not a traitor, as well as contend with a corrupt rival officer (Kinnaman), and various elements of the Soviet military hierarchy.
Child 44, as a whole, is less than the sum of its parts. At the heart of it, there is a brutal, gripping mystery set against a very unusual backdrop, and some particularly strong performances from the impressive ensemble. However, the film becomes bogged down in far too many sub-plots and peripheral story threads, that inflate the picture to an unwieldy two hours and twenty minutes, and ultimately dilute the impact of the central mystery.
Most, if not all, of the film’s extraneous elements should have been excised during the scripting stage. A good director, or producer, would have taken veteran writer Richard Price’s screenplay, adapted from the novel by Tom Rob Smith, and pared it down to its essentials. Sadly, director Daniel Espinosa (Safe House) and producer Ridley Scott take the more-is-more route, and wind up with an unfocused film in which story strands and side characters are woefully underdeveloped.
That’s not to say that Child 44 is a complete wash. As a film, there is quite a lot going for it. The cast, as mentioned, is uniformly excellent without exception. Hardy manages to carry the picture even as the script tries to pull it apart. He brings humanity and dignity to this disgraced hero, as well as that wonderfully brutish intensity of his that seems to come naturally and makes him so compelling to watch. The story takes Demidov to some truly dark places, and because of Hardy’s magnetic presence, we’re willing to go right along with him.
Hardy aside, the film also features standout work from Rapace, who is quiet but effective as his wife, Kinnaman as Demidov’s slimy nemesis, and an exceptionally creepy Paddy Considine in a smallish role I won’t go into. Oldman is his typical solid self as a veteran police commander, though his screen time is sadly limited, and overall, he is vastly under-utilized. Jason Clarke and Vincent Cassel, meanwhile, are both flat out wasted in small, thankless roles that anyone could have played.
An interesting aspect of Child 44 is its look inside Soviet Russia post-WWII, which for the film’s sake, I will assume is accurate (perhaps it’d be more credible if Russian speaking actors were cast, instead of actors speaking accented English). The idea that, much like in 1950’s America, people in Russia were being accused left and right of spying for the West, is rather ironic. I suppose Senator McCarthy had more in common with the Soviets than he realized.
The notion the Soviet government tried to promote, that murder couldn’t happen in the USSR, that it was something that only afflicted corrupt Western countries, is as fascinating as it is utterly absurd. At first it comes off as a bizarre, if slightly amusing, form of denial, then when you realize the main reason this child killer was able to carry on the way he did was because of this ridiculous belief, it becomes genuinely chilling.
That is the point that Child 44 could have and should have driven home, had it been the central focus, instead of simply being another story element mixed in with far too many others. As it stands, it’s a decent but overlong two hour and twenty minute movie with a very good hour and forty-five minute movie lurking somewhere within. It is a terrific showcase for Hardy, who gets to display more range than he did in Mad Max, and while the film is a bit of a mess, his performance keeps it from being a boring one.
