DIRECTOR: Daniel Espinosa

CAST: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman, Joel Kinnaman, Paddy Considine, Fares Fares, Jason Clarke, Vincent Cassel, Charles Dance

REVIEW:

Adapting a book can be a tricky task; change too much and outrage its adherents, but follow the text too slavishly and risk a sluggish motion picture. Book and film are different mediums and should be treated as such.  With its myriad subplots and in-depth exploration of life in the 1950s Soviet Union, Tom Rob Smith’s best-selling historical crime novel (loosely inspired by the case of 1980s Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo) doesn’t lend itself to being inherently cinematic, and director Daniel Espinosa and screenwriter Richard Price’s attempt to bring it to the screen is sometimes murky, scattershot, and difficult to follow.  However, while a flawed film, Child 44 is not the outright disaster that its status as a dismal box office flop would indicate (the film barely played in only 500 theaters before quickly disappearing from them, delaying this review from its limited and short-lived theatrical release in April until it became available on DVD and online streaming in late July).  There’s still plenty of intrigue here, and for those interested in a murder mystery against the historical backdrop of the Stalin-era Soviet Union, Child 44 is worth giving a chance. Continue reading →