Marginal at best

Rating: 5/10 (20 April 2015)

I was really looking forward to Child 44, a movie starring Tom Hardy, with Gary Oldman supporting, does the content even matter? The answer yes, the content still matters. I'm not big on reading the book that a movie is adapted from, but in this circumstance I may have to pick it up and give it a read. Since I'm not sure whether it was poorly adapted or somehow the idea of murder in the soviet union, at a time when murder 'wasn't possible' in a communist state, turned into a boring film.
The performances of Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace were uninspired and very bland, with the one bright spot of Gary Oldman turning in a solid role, as has come to be expected from him. The movie felt like 3/4 propaganda and 1/4 thriller.
The child murders are brought up randomly throughout the first hour of the movie, while a picture is painted of a unstable husband wife relationship, and then a conflict thrown in to move the story along slowly. By the time the murders come to the for front of the film, and a loose connection is drawn to give an idea of who the murderer could be. By the time it all comes to a conclusion you're just hoping the movie will end given its two hour plus run time.
All an all they're probably worse uses of your time, but there are certainly better options. They certainly could have done a better job of bringing the thriller aspect more and leaving everything else out.