not what I expected

Rating: 4/10 (11 February 2016)

As a devotee of Soviet history I expected this movie, from what I had read, to be a look at the treatment of orphan children under Stalin's regime. I guess I didn't read closely enough. What begins as a decent portrayal of the cruelty and brutality of Communist Russia evolves, slowly and interminably into a Slavic episode of "Law and Order," except that Law and Order did not have so many gratuitous and drawn out fight scenes. Unlike other viewers, I applaud the Russia accents, as unevenly as they are executed. The dialogue could use some brushing up. I don't think the idiomatic expression "a complete wash" was in use in Russia at the time. Basically however, the movie descends from a decent beginning to a mundane murder mystery with too many improbable turns to be convincing. And it's too damn long.