No Murder In Paradise

Child 44

War hero and current Ministry of State Security or MSG agent Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy Locke) works to keep the U.S.S.R safe from foreign and domestic threats. Demidov’s job is to sniff out traders and spies throughout the country. However, Demidov’s life takes a drastic turn when a series of events begin to happen. First the “accidental” death of his friend/partner’s son and the second being the accusation of Demidov’s own wife being a spy. To save his wife, Raisa (Noomi Rapace Prometheus), Demidov valiantly sticks up for her and so is severely demoted and cast out of Moscow to a small country town. Unfortunately for Demidov, his problems follow him to the country as another child is found “accidentally” dead the same way as his former partner’s son. Demidov vows to find out what monster is killing children and bring honor back to him and his wife.

Sometimes in Hollywood there is a rare occurrence where the acting in a film is better than the whole film itself. This is the case for Child 44 as the actors’ performances were great, but the film itself was lacking the same punch. Based on a novel of the same name, Child 44 seemed like it wanted to tell too many stories in a two hour period. The sad thing is that all of the subplots all connect to one another, but there are too many of them. The main plot of the film is the murder mystery and due to the screenwriters not mapping the other subplots better, the film becomes bogged down by other stories.

Tom Hardy delivers another stellar performance as Leo Demidov. Hardy demonstrates Demidov’s devotion, not only to his country, but to his wife beautifully. Along with his great performance, Hardy is able to pull off a thick Russian accent as well. This is true for all of the actors in this film, Russian or otherwise. Noomi Rapace is also excellent in the film as Raisa Demidov. Rapace gives Raisa a strong personality for a woman in a VERY misogynistic society. Hardy and Rapace have great chemistry during the film, though not in a romantic way, but has they seem very comfortable on screen together.

Safe House director Daniel Espinosa takes on this Russian story. Espinosa does all he can to make this film as un-discombobulated as possible. Though, Espinosa’s way of doing that is giving the audiences something great to look at throughout the film. The director gives us great landscape shots and beautiful emotional scenes with the two leads. However, Espinosa couldn’t distract us long enough because the many subplots eventually take over and the audience is reminded of the maze they are going through.

As I have mentioned, all of the non-Russian actors keep up with their accents very well, which makes this a plus in the good-things column. I am tired of watching Russian based films with actors that have British or American accents. If the writers suck to the murder mystery side of this film, than the film would have turned out much better, however, the filmmakers try to put too much into a 2 hour and 17 minute film. I will recommend the film based solely on the performances from each one of these actors.

The Verdict: Wait For Blu-Ray