Confused? You will be. There's a good film struggling to get out, but sadly this isn't it

Rating: Null/10 (31 December 2015)

Other reviews assure us that the film isn't a patch on the novel on which it is based, but as I haven't read the novel, I have no idea whether or not that is true. As it stands the film version of Child 44 has a lot going for it, though unfortunately it loses on points. It tries to do too much, doesn't quite know what kind of film it wants to be and ends up being none of them. It's a confused production, well-filmed, great direction, but at the end of the day so bloody confusing you might well - as I did - ask yourself: well, what was that all about.
Set in Stalinist Russia it is great on atmosphere, great on conveying the sheer terror that existed while Stalin was still alive where husband could not talk openly to wife and more or less anything might - bad luck and chance being the major factors - get you killed or even worse.
The setting is the film's strong point (though I think it might well have done better without the cod Russian accents). And the soundtrack - at least when I watched it on Amazon - was quite simply abysmal: I struggled to understand what had been said and even re-spooling the film a few minutes to watch a scene two or three times again - possible when watching a streaming or a DVD - didn't help. That is a technical failing for which there can be no excuse.
Ostensibly it is all about one man's hunt to track down a serial killer in a paranoid, totalitarian state which proclaims itself to be such a paradise to live in that murder cannot exist. But there is so much more going on that it is bloody difficult to know what actually is going on. And that has to be down to the script and then the producers who should have called a halt to proceedings while the film script was sorted out. Sadly, they didn't.
Visually, the film is as good as any you might see which has Ridley Scott as a producer. But there's a lot more to films than just what it looks like - story for one thing, and that is where the major confusion lies. In fact, it is all so confusing that I shan't event try to convey what it might - note might - be about.
Where the whole thing really falls down is what is conventionally called the 'denouement'. Here Child 44 simply resorts to standard schlock western happy ending values, producing an 'ending' which is wholly ridiculous. Utterly, utterly ridiculous.
So there you have it. My final comment will be this: at its heart there is here a great film to be made, but this simply isn't it. That great film, with a better, more focused story, must be made by an Eastern European film-making with a cynical heart - to reflect the utterly horrific times it portrays - and a clearer idea of just what it intends to convey.
However, and possibly quite surprisingly, if you have half a mind to watch it, go ahead: the atmosphere of Stalinist terror is conveyed perfectly and, it has to be said, what the film shows is quite possibly not half as bad as what really happened. But bear in mind the overall experience is rather frustrating, if you want more than just atmosphere.
Confused? I was and you might well be, too.
PS Ask yourself why a high-value production made in 2015 is already available on Amazon. Well?