Child 44

Bleak? You want bleak? Pfft, I'll give you bleak: Problem Child 44. I think I have some racy problem, all slicked hair Russians look the same, I swear I saw the same soldier die 4 different ways in this and I was on the edge of my seat trying to solve the mystery of why I wasn't turning this off.

Has the world gone mad? Drivel like Avengers: AoU manages to get decent ratings while Child 44 gets absolutely butchered, while being vastly superior. It has quite an epic scope and a running time to boot. There isn't anything wrong with this film. The only thing that could be blamed is the trailer, which makes it look like a straight up serial killer flick. Child 44 encapsulates much more. It is a historical drama accompanied by thriller elements. Oldman: "The bigger killer is the government."

An awful, grueling experience. I can't remember the last time I shook my head, rolled my eyes, and mumbled WTF as many times at a movie as this. It's a completely disjointed mess. It felt like five plots crammed into one, with each thread intersecting the other in the most amateurish way possible. Admittedly, I was hooked by the incredible array of talent on display, but they were underused and underdeveloped. Just imagine Ocean's 12, but without any of the levity, joy or entertainment.

Murky, confused plotting of an intriguing premise is made at least watchable by a stellar cast doing their best to breathe life into proceedings; the film's biggest problem is an inability to find form and focus, as either a sprawling depiction of a totalitarian society, or the more personal story of Hardy's dedication to his own moral code(s). Some well-crafted action sequences stand out, but a climactic mudfight is a too laughably silly and on-the-nose metaphor.

An incredible look into a society so shackled by oppression that even the pursuit of justice for tracking down a serial child murderer becomes a crime. Totalitarianism supports an insane political agenda & political corruption. Repression & fear of reprisal motivates every decision, even who one should marry. The story is raw, brutal & emotional. Tom Handy gives an exceptional performance. Noomi Rapace is also very good. A dark & often disturbing story. Haunting and memorable.

There are the bones of a solid thriller here, but the languid pacing prevents it from achieving its real potential. It never quite finds a way to make the Cold War elements completely mesh with the tense, creepy child-murder plot, and for every genuinely tense sequence there's something rather more anodyne just around the corner. Good in places.

What cast for such a misfire. Child 44 tries to do too much and ends up leaving its whodunnit thriller aspect in the backseat. The production was obviously enamored with dirt and mud to an annoying degree, only to reach its crescendo in, you guessed it, a pit of mud.

About 44 minutes could have been cut from this movie. I really didn't mind the beginning of the film, but as the movie rolled along it felt really unnecessary. I know this was based off of a book, but I don't think that everything from the book should have made its way in. The really interesting part of this movie starts about 45 minutes in, where the child-murderer investigation takes off. This part reminds me of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...

Overlong and visually drab, and it bites off more than it can chew, story-wise, but it's an effectively-told tale about a dark, bleak, ugly place and time. A one-time watch, but generally pretty satisfying; Hardy and Rapace excel, as always.

Child 44 (2015) is definitely a story which could have the emotions flowing greatly, but everything felt so disjointed. Strange, considering how straight forward the narrative really was. Don't know how Daniel Espinosa managed to create such confusion with such a slow pace. And there was little it's regarded actors could do to make Child 44 step out of it's dense daze. A simple case of something promising not working.

Everytime Rapace screamed "LEO! LEO! LEO!", I thought "NO..NO..NO..." This suffers from writer Price's inability to choose what he wants this story to be about. It is clear that this is from a novel and Price trying to stuff it all in there. Too many sub stories makes it very difficult to keep up, and really immerse into the story. Hardy is still awesome. Rapace, Oldman and Kinnaman is solid, but playing it safe. *Okay

too many layers, each one interesting in itself, but ending up underdeveloped. the way everything is resolved feels pretty contrived. directing is mostly solid, although it often seems espinosa would've much rather made an action movie this material didn't exactly allow for. performances are neither especially good or bad, hardy is his usual bully-self again, rapace exists, oldman is sadly heavily underused, killer and adversary are uncharismatic and forgettable.

People really seem to have missed the point with this film. The point is that you can't have a standard murder investigation in a decimated society living under the most repressive regime of the 20th C, when every policeman and soldier is more concerned with whether they would be 1 of the 25 million shot, enslaved or sent to gulags. Nor can you have a sweet romance between the 2 main characters to lift the gloom. So of course this film is disjointed, disoriented and bleak. That's the whole point

Interesting still, and unusual setting. The oppressive atmosphere does its work. Oddly star-studded cast. The end is almost too good for everything else however.

Possibly the worst ratio of cast talent to film quality I've ever seen, yikes. All you had to do is remake Citizen X with the Chernobyl music, bing bang bong you've got another film that everyone loves but makes no-one want to ever visit Russia.

Hard-going, in every sense. Long, slow, unpleasant subject matter, everyone is pretty miserable all the time... And the ending is particularly weak, both in terms of everyone arriving at the same place, and how it works out. I hear the book is great though.

thriller

"Child 44" is a brutal, hopeless crime thriller, chilled to the bone with Soviet era paranoia, intimidation, and oppression. Hardy, Oldman, Kinnaman, and Considine are all excellent, though Hardy is the best--as always. Though it's clearly not noir, or hardboiled, this movie should be required viewing. It evokes a staple feeling in those subgenres: that the world is a terrible, dangerous place, where there will always be a grey cloud overhead.

A dark, confrontational thriller in post-war Russia. My opinion here : http://opinion-as-a-moviefreak.blogspot.be/2016/04/child-44-2015.html [Full review]

Not bad.

Although having potential, 2 problems really screw it up: fake russian accents and lack of believable cause behind culprit's actions. Both issues could have been solved pretty easy. First one, by either getting russian cast or by not bothering with faking at all. It looks like some of the actors have speech disorder when they try too hard. Secondly, they could just choose omit one detail about killer and I would work nicely.

This crime thriller with a distinctly soviet spin works remarkably well. Hardy reigns, but Rapace, Oldman, et. al. give solid performances. Great to see Paddy Considine there as well.

Took me two tries to watch this movie, the first time around I just couldn't concentrate on it. It's a very dark, moody film with a slowly developing plot, and I wasn't always sure what the story was trying to tell me. Nonetheless it's a pretty good movie in terms of showing the dire and hopeless search for justice in a time and place that ignored everything, even a serial killer, that didn't agree with its twisted version of a paradise.

My soft spot for Tom Hardy is obviously a mile wide, but this really isn't bad. It's slow and grim but I don't get the hate. I enjoyed the troubled chemistry between the two lead characters - watch it for that rather than for thrills.

love the scenario. the accent is distracting at first but story and acting are compelling

Bigger budget version of Citizen X without the narrative clarity that made that film work

Very dark, very dirty. What you would expect from that time in that part of the world. An ok thriller.

Pretty good until the really weak climax. WTF?