This was such a mixed bag. Tom Hardy's performance was fine, and I enjoyed the overall atmosphere of the film. It certainly did evoke Soviet Russia.
But the pacing is just so off. The movie is slow where it should be moving along to get to the point, and rushes through the good parts. Combine that with underdeveloped characters whose motivations are more or less completely opaque, and you have a recipe for boredom in the midst of what should be an interesting story.
Some elements, like the homosexuality bit that other reviewers mentioned, were simply unnecessary. As a whole, the script could have been much tighter and leaner. And I'm unclear on what happened in several places due to the shaky, "realistic" camera work during action scenes.
I don't understand Raisa. She openly admits that she married Leo out of fear, but when given the chance to leave him and be with someone she does love, she doubles down and stays with Leo? For this character-related reason (and many others), I might have to seek out alternative versions of the story (the book, or the other film Citizen X) to understand it.
5.4 for me. Not quite boring enough to be "Meh", but too poorly paced to be truly "Fair".
Not a bad movie per se, but all in all not a very good one mainly because of the directing choices. The story and atmosphere was good, but why on earth have the actors all play with a fake Russian accent ? if you're aiming for authenticity, have them speak Russian, use Russian actors.. But of course that wouldn't sell, but the half measure of having the comedians speaking in Russian accented english felt just contrived not to mention distracting.
The rendering of events and how Russia was a police state inserting itself in everyday life and up into the people's bedroom (the short subplot where a guy gets caught for being gay and ultimately commits suicide), instilling fear at every level of the society of a knock on the door, was on the other end quite good.
The characters interaction, their motives where sketchy at best, which, is paradoxical, with a set-up this long. But again, the acting and direction made it quite impossible to engage at an emotional level with either character and you endup watch the plot unfold with as much involvement as you would watching an ad for some banking company.
So an interesting plot, mostly butchered by a second rate director with the wrong aspirations. The movie nonetheless has some highlights along the way, but would in no way deserve a second watching.
Review by MightyMike91BlockedParent2015-05-07T15:13:43Z
While I walked in the theater I expected a good movie. Because I liked the concept of the story as it was set-up in the trailer. But mostly because I 'trusted' Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman to pick a good movie to play in. While I walked out the theater I had different thoughts unfortunately. The film was disappointing to me and I will try to explain why. It wasn't the acting and 'world building' but I disliked the directing, screenplay and filming.
First of the directing and filming, all of the action scenes where flooded with shaky cam. This was handled very badly in my opinion. I couldn't figure out what was happening most of the time. Due to the shaky cam, number of cuts, close-ups and the peace of all that. That was the main reason why I disliked 'Safe House', which is also made by Daniel Espinosa. It almost felt like he was trying the make the filming and directing 'not perfectly on purpose' to make it 'real' but it didn't worked out at all! It all felt kinda clumsy and there were way to many meaningless shots overall. There were some exceptions, some shots of the cities and area's they visited where beautifully. They really landed the rough and dark tone that they successfully tried the show. Although they over did it sometimes.
Then the screenplay or script, which is based on a 'best selling novel', again! First of you get a nice back story of Tom Hardy's main character, which felt real to me. All of the other characters felt a bit empty, like they were there to fill a place that was written for them. That made it almost impossible for my to understand the characters and the decisions they make. I also missed the whole balance in the story. The first part was way to long ( set-up ), the middle was rush ( plot kicks in ) and the final party ( ending ) was also rushed and kinda unbelievable. I think because of this I wasn't sucked in to the story. The second and third party felt way to easy and straight forward. Like solving a child murder case which is spread over thousand of miles is easy. I think the story could be told in a better and more interesting way.
Overall I was disappointed by Child 44. The dark Russia after WWII was displayed intense but the story lagged suspension and balance. The action scenes sucked even more than the conversations because of the directing and filming methods they just. Tom Hardy did is part good but not brilliant and unfortunately Gary Oldman's characters was barely in it. I give Child 44 an 5 aka 'Meh'! Thanks for reading!