CHILD 44 portrays Russia as a land of . . .

Rating: 9/10 (20 April 2015)

. . . murderous liars, where Life is Cheap, Death lies around every corner, and the slain may be considered "lucky" to be out of their misery. (But not as fortunate as they would have been if they were born in, say, Finland in the first place.) If you diagnose Russia's national character during the last couple Millenia of its recorded history, "paranoid schizophrenic" would be spot on, and CHILD 44 provides ample evidence for such a conclusion. At the end of CHILD 44, the surviving cast members make a lame attempt to blame everything on Hitler. But anyone familiar with the few thousand years preceding the Third Reich's Russian foray understands that "Der Fuhrer" was no match for the Pure Evil that is Russia. Viewers of CHILD 44 may form their own theory, as the movie implies that Mother Russia got knocked up by a Demon to get the whole shebang going (but the jury's probably still out on that one).