Child 44 - C

Rated R, 137 minutes
Wes's Grade: C

Well-acted but overlong drama "Child 44" lacks thrills

"Child 44" is a moody, well-acted but dull thriller about a 1930s-era serial killer. On paper, it must've looked better: a decent director, a great cast and an intriguing story that fell apart during execution. Set during Stalin's reign in the 1930s, Russian secret service agent Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy) loses status, power and home when he refuses to denounce his own wife, Raisa (Noomi Rapace), as a traitor. Exiled from Moscow to a grim provincial outpost, Leo and Raisa join forces with General Mikhail Nesterov (Gary Oldman) to track down a serial killer who preys on young boys. Directed by Daniel Espinosa ("Safe House") and written by Richard Price, based on Tim Rob Smith's novel of the same, the overlong "Child 44" is a well-acted yet overly ambitious drama that becomes bogged down in enough subplots for another whole movie. The three leads are solid, especially the usually intense Hardy ("The Dark Knight Rises"), who can manage a Russian accent quite well, and it helps he's worked with his two other leads before (Rapace in last year's affecting contemporary crime drama "The Drop" and his "Dark Knight" co-star Oldman), and the three have a comfortable chemistry together as their characters work together to solve the crimes. Problematic is the fact that "Child 44" is too long and meanders in its talkier, much slower middle act, making the film feel much longer than it really is, not to mention the fact that the actor playing one of the antagonists, the bland Joel Kinnaman of "Robocop" fame, hurts the film in a miscast performance. The costumes, the photography and the music are all well-done and add to its moody tone and Espinosa has some good, gripping scenes, especially near the end, but there's not enough thrills to sustain interest overall. "Child 44" isn't a terrible movie, but considering the source material and the A-list cast, it could've been much, much better. As an interesting side note, the serial killer is based on a real Russian killer, the Kostov Ripper (Andrei Chikatilo), who unlike the killer in the film, was a contemporary figure.