Sunday, April 19, 2015

Child 44









It’s currently banned in Russia. (The truth hurts.) 

Director Daniel Espinosa’s Child 44 is a gritty, sometimes tough-to-take, saga of the Stalinist era of post-War Russia when the party line was “There is no murder in paradise.”
Tom Hardy gives an outstanding performance as an accidental war hero, who has a high-level post in the military police of a government that wishes to be blind to murder even when children are being slaughtered by a serial killer.  For an official, whose son is killed to claim it’s murder, when the State says it’s an accident, puts his entire family in danger of being arrested as traitors.  (Nice place to live.)
                                                                                                                           
Hardy’s performance is backed by an equally excellent portrayal by Noomi Rapace of his unloving wife.  And, Gary Oldman is his usual superb self as general commandant of the police in a small industrial town.

Writer Richard Price has evoked the bleakness and darkness of Tom Rob Smith’s novel.

If you like Le Carre-type thrillers, you’ll “enjoy” Child 44.  I give it a 4 out of 5.

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