It's not a bad movie, but it's not great as well

Rating: Null/10 (27 February 2016)

I was surprised to find the major Hollywood studio movie "Child 44" in the Blu-ray section at my local library, because I hadn't even heard of it before. Doing some pre-viewing research, I discovered that the studio more or less threw the movie away, giving it a small and not well publicized theatrical release. When this kind of thing happens, it usually means the studio feels it has a turkey on its hands and they are cutting their losses. Actually, the movie is some distance from being branded as terrible. The look and feel of the movie, replicating the Stalin-lead Soviet Union is spot on. Insights into how the oppressive government at the time worked are often interesting, helping to make the movie not be boring. The acting is also very good as well. However, the movie also has some major problems. Although the movie is not boring, it's all the same WAY stretched out. It's often rambling about unnecessary details, and reluctant to focus on the heart of the movie, and the movie ends up being much too long (over two hours in length!) Also, the sequence you'll be long waiting for - the climatic confrontation with the killer - ends up being a real letdown. As I said, the movie is not awful, but it is also not satisfying enough. The problems I listed, along with the fact that Americans often don't seem that interested in movies with a strong "foreign" element to them, probably explain why the studio was reluctant to put in the expense and work necessary to give it a wider release.