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| Tom Hardy stars in Daniel Espinosa's Child 44 |
A Test of Blind Obedience
IMDb Plot: A disgraced member (Tom Hardy) of the military police investigates a series of nasty child murders during the Stalin-era Soviet Union.
"There is no murder in paradise," but then again, the Soviet Union was a far cry from paradise around the time of Daniel Espinosa's Child 44, an under-the-radar thriller that sheds (an unwelcome?) light on the U.S.S.R.'s checkered past. What a shame, since it's a good movie with a stellar cast and a big budget ($50 million) but apparently no target audience (save this reviewer.) Hardy is terrific (Noomi Rapace too) but Espinosa's thriller lacks thrills, and runs long (137 minutes) with a few too many subplots. It's full of despair, but well-acted and historically relevant.
Grade: B-
