There is a murder mystery somewhere in here

Rating: 3/10 (22 July 2019)

There was an interesting story here about a hunt for a grotesque child killer. Too often the main plot goes off the rails and is more to do with an unhinged subordinate with a grudge.
Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy) is orphan turned war hero. Now in the early 1950s he is a high flying secret service officer in Stalin's Soviet Union. A state where murder does not exist in paradise. Murder is a capitalist disease. When they come across a murder it tends to be reclassified as an unfortunate accident.
Leo comes across the death of a child near a train line. His father is a fellow friend and comrade. The father believes it was murder but Leo persuades him to forget about it.
However deranged underling Vasili (Joel Kinnaman) has nefarious plans for Leo because Leo challenged him when he killed two people for harbouring a fugitive. He also has desires for Leo's wife Raisa (Noomi Rapace) who is accused of unpatriotic activities and Leo fails to denounce her.
Leo is demoted and exiled to the remote town of Volsk. Leo works under General Mikhail Nesterov (Gary Oldman) who is at first suspicious of Leo, especially when a child's body is discovered along the rail line. However both reluctantly team up when they discover there have been a spate of similar killings over the years.
There are several plot strands that compete for attention and the film never properly gels. In fact it is a dour stodgy mess that neglects the important part of the movie so it can have a go at the nightmare of Stalinism.