Child 44 is set in 1950s Russia. MGB investigator Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy) is tasked with rooting out dissidents and traitors who are plotting against the government. He is removed from his position after refusing to denounce his wife Raisa (Noomi Rapace) after she is accused of those very crimes. He is given a much less prestigious post out in the country, and there he becomes obsessed with a series of child murders that the government is intent on just covering up. With his former comrades actively working against him, Leo follows the trail of a killer whose work has been obscured by the appearance of prosperity.
One bad decision quickly unravels Child 44. The thing as a whole isn’t particularly exciting. The story presents a very specific portrait of life in Russia in the 1950s, one that seems to wholly ignore the actual history of the place for the sake of creating an oppressive atmosphere. The procedural elements aren’t very well done, and the film becomes completely incoherent when it tries to present any sort of action. But these flaws only come to light later on in the film. The very first mistake the film is in having all of its characters speak in English with a Russian accent.
This is a talented cast of actors, but it is actually difficult not to think of Boris and Natasha from Rocky & Bullwinkle once they start talking. Because these are not actually Russian accents. It is notable that nobody in the main is actually Russian. And so every one of these accents sounds like a cartoonish approximation, the kind of accent one might pull out while making a Yakov Smirnoff-type joke. No matter how serious the plot gets, or how terrible the murders get, it’s still impossible to take any of it seriously. These accents are all ridiculous.
The only way these accents would be forgivable was if the movie was in any way fun. But it isn’t. It is dour almost all the way through, presenting this vision of Soviet Russia where no happiness can possibly exist, and good men are punished for doing good deeds. There is some pretense of prestige in this production, despite the very obvious fact that the story is pure procedural pulp. The gray visuals and the plodding, deliberate pace make it feel as though the film actually has something important to say, even though it is mainly the stuff of airport reading.
Director Daniel Espinosa just has no feel for the story he’s putting on screen. And his limitations show further when tasked with presenting action. The film just devolves into an incoherent mess, the camera moving so wildly during fights that one just never gets a sense of what’s actually happening. The acting is completely hobbled by the film’s primary bad decision. Tom Hardy is a magnetic performer, but he really struggles with the accents, which comes and goes. Without the accent, Noomi Rapace’s performance might have read as more complex. With the cartoonish flourishes, it mainly reads as terrible stereotype.
Child 44 is very silly, but it doesn’t seem that it is. There just aren’t enough traces of knowing irony to justify the Cold War-caliber Russophobia that one picks up from the most casual viewing. It takes everything seriously, including the ridiculous Russian accents that its cast has to struggle through. The film has a penchant for horrific imagery, of the kind of human awfulness that should haunt the viewers. And yet, it’s all delivered with the kind of language that only really has a place in comedies. It really shouldn’t be funny, but it is.
My Rating:
