Popular reviews

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★ 5

  "Look at this movie’s cast: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace. Joel Kinnaman. Gary Oldman. Vincent Cassel. Paddy Considine. Even Jason Clarke shows up for a couple scenes. That’s a staggering roster of acting talent. It shouldn’t be possible to make a movie this bad with a cast that good. And yet somehow it is. And CHILD 44 is the proof."

  Full review: screencrush.com/child-44-review/

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  Review by Esteban Gonzalez ★★½ 2

  "There is no murder in paradise.”

  Another of my most anticipated films of the year that failed to live up to my expectations. I usually tend to look forward to films based solely on the director, but this time I was excited about the cast: Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, and Noomi Rapace. Child 44 is an adaptation of Tom Rob Smith’s best selling novel directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House) set in Stalin-era Soviet Union. Of course it is easily going to be labelled as anti-Soviet propaganda considering it is based on a novel written by a British author and directed by a Swedish director. The screenwriter, Richard Price (The Color of Money), is American and despite being…

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  Review by Matthew L. Brady ★★

  I know this is a really late review as this movie came out in April, and the reason for that I completely forgot about this one. It's until I was looking through what I've seen to review and I came across this and I thought to myself "Oh I remember that the movie. Well I should just get my thoughts out since I got nothing else to review until tomorrow".

  The movie is not very good. Actually, it's pretty disappointing. It had such a big name cast to it but even they didn't do anything special in this movie. I'm going to forget about this movie and so will you at the end of year. I'm not going to waste my time or your time taking about this movie, as do you really care about me going into detail about a film that's not good. Nobody cares.

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  Review by bree1981 ★★★½ 5

  My expectations were fairly low going into this film as I hadn't read too many favourable reviews but I came away pleasantly surprised. Set in the Stalin era of the Soviet Union, Tom Hardy plays Leo Demidov, a Russian war hero who is now a highly ranked officer in the Russian security service, his job is to hunt down so called traitors and turn them in for interrogation and once they are coerced into admitting guilt, death by firing squad. The idealistic officers world is turned upside down by a double tragedy, the child of his best friend Alexei (Fares Fares) is murdered with his superior forcing him to take part in a cover-up and he's tasked with looking into…

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  Review by Mikael Stånggren ★★★ 2

  As a Swede, you always feel a little extra proud when our thespian exports (in this case Joel Kinnaman and Noomi Rapace, among others) get to perform alongside A-listers like Gary Oldman and Tom Hardy.

  The enjoyment in this becomes short-lived, however, when they are presented with a script that doesn’t quite match the talent. And when the acting is furthermore undermined by strained Russian accents…well, then the way is virtually paved for wounded credibility.

  Child 44 takes place in Stalin’s Soviet in 1953. Central to the narrative is Tom Hardy as Leo Demidov, a military police agent. His job mainly seems to revolve around chasing down traitors and bringing them to justice. Unlike certain sadistically prone colleagues, however, he…

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  Review by Ryne Walley ★★

  "There is no murder in paradise."

  Such a chore. Fails to valuably communicate the magnitude of its overarching political circumstances while also lacking any true sense of effective suspense behind the central murder mystery. There’s no questioning the production value on screen. This is a handsomely mounted effort, the set decoration and wardrobe each lending an aesthetic authenticity to the film. The dramatic abilities of the cast are equally commendable with Tom Hardy and Noomi Repace in strong form while the likes of Gary Oldman, Fares Fares, Joel Kinnaman, and Vincent Cassel (among other character talents) deliver capable supporting turns. But from the very beginning Child 44 struggles to maintain a critical degree of thematic or dramatic focus that can…

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  Review by shookone ½

  a ridiculous C-movie, that looks extremely cheap on all cinematic levels - from the ugly sepia drenched imagery via the soundtrack drowning in total kitsch up to the startlingly huge amount of hollywood a- and b-list actors performing their shamefully laughable russian accents as if someone had a gun to their head during the shoot (feels from the looks, the massive bulk of the 50 mil $ went into their pocket though).

  seriously jaw-dropping that this got made, the only assumption coming into my head: is this the effort of some dark and dusty anti-communist forces of studio execs that are still fighting a battle that was actually won 25 years ago?!

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  Review by Andy Summers ★★ 2

  They always say that it's "grim up North", but after seeing this Russian set mystery/thriller from director Daniel Espinosa, I'd happily add East to that assessment. A film with a starry cast, most of them under utilised, this has an interesting premise that is loosely based around Russia's most prolific serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo. The wheels however come off fairly quickly as this gets bogged down in subplots, romantic entanglements between main characters that have absolutely no onscreen chemistry at all, and a finale that is yet another anti-climax.

  Set in 1953 during Stalin's reign of terror in the Soviet Union, this film centres on Tom Hardy's Leo Demidov, a former war hero who's now a Captain in the MGB.…

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  Review by Katalas ★★

  Leo Demidov: If you are so innocent, why do you run? Hmm?
  Anatoly Tarasovich Brodsky: That's a very good question. I run because you were following me. When you are followed, you are arrested. And when you are arrested, you are already guilty. So you tell me, why did I run?

  I really wanted to love Child 44, and there are many reasons for it: the obvious one is for Tom Hardy as the lead role, but also because of the impressive casting, and the story itself (I'm a sucker for dark themed detective crimes), but I thought there were many gaps in this one.

  It's astonishing how long it felt to watch it through the end. Usually I don't…

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  Review by Robby

  There's a lot to admire about "Child 44", such as the great cast who all turn in very good performances, solid cinematography, a few entertaining and very well done action sequences, a harrowing but interesting plot, and the costume related stuff fit the 1950's perfectly, however it definitely has it's flaws. The directing by Daniel Espinosa is very bland, the writing is terrible, the characters aren't interesting, the run-time could've been cut down by at least 15 minutes, and it doesn't give the plot the treatment it deserves.

  Tom Hardy is fantastic (As ALWAYS) and there were two very effective action sequences, but I was left pretty disappointed with this one. Definitely not bad enough to earn it's 24% on Rotten Tomatoes, but still not that good.

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  Review by matt lynch ★★

  "Here's the pitch...ooh, strike three! And Daniel Espinosa is outta here! How about that?"

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  Review by Deckard🥃 ★★ 5

  I remember seeing a trailer for Child 44 back in March when I saw Run All Night. I was hooked. It looked like it could be a very good serial killer film set in Stalin ruled Russia shortly after World War II. The film seemingly disappeared. There were no theaters around me playing it. Lionsgate/Summit dumped this film which features such a brilliant cast, but why? It simply wasn't a good enough film, and the reviews for it make light of this. Outside of the strong, central performance by Tom Hardy, Child 44 isn't that good.

  MGB Agent Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy) unravels a series of child murders in early 1950's Moscow. The government claims that these children are killed…