Child 44 (film)

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Movie
German title Child 44
Original title Child 44
Country of production United States ,
United Kingdom ,
Czech Republic ,
Romania
original language English , Russian
Publishing year 2015
length 137 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Daniél Espinosa
script Richard Price
production Ridley Scott ,
Michael Schaefer ,
Greg Shapiro
music Jon Ekstrand
camera Philippe Rousselot
cut Dylan Tichenor ,
Pietro Scalia
occupation

Kind 44 (Original title: Child 44 ) is a thriller by Daniél Espinosa from 2015 . The screenplay for the film was written by Richard Price , based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Tom Rob Smith . It stars Tom Hardy , Gary Oldman , Noomi Rapace , Joel Kinnaman , Paddy Considine , Jason Clarke and Vincent Cassel . The film was released in the US on April 17, 2015 and received mixed to negative reviews. The film flopped at the box office .

action

Leo Demidow grew up as an orphan in the Soviet Union because his father starved to death at the Holodomor . During the Second World War he took part in the conquest of Berlin as a soldier in the Red Army and became known nationwide when he hoisted the flag on the Reichstag. His comrade Alexei was supposed to be there, but since his arm was full of stolen watches, Leo was chosen for it. Years later, Alexej and Leo live in Moscow and are henchmen of the Ministry for State Security (MGB) in the Stalinist terrorist state. They systematically arrest suspects, most of whom the apparatus targeted by accident, arbitrariness or denunciation. These are then forced through pressure or torture to denounce themselves and other innocent people. Leo has now risen to the rank of captain. When Lieutenant Vasily Nikitin, who was subordinate to him, arbitrarily liquidated a peasant couple during one of these arrests, Leo clashes with them and beats them. Vasili, who had also taken part in the storming of the Reichstag, but was criticized there by Alexej for his cowardice, becomes Leo's mortal enemy.

Leo and Alexej are still friends. Leo is married to the teacher Raissa and is happy to have found his great love with her. When Alexey's son is found murdered, there are many indications of a sex offender. However, the investigating authorities refuse to investigate in this direction. In the postulated “socialist paradise” there could be no child murderer and therefore it was recorded in the files that it was a train accident. Leo warns Alexei against investigating himself or claiming it was murder. This could be seen as a criticism of the state and bring it into the gulag .

Wassili is now also making a career in the authority. Their joint superior Kuzmin wants to test Leo's ultimate loyalty to the regime and calls on him to denounce and arrest Raissa. Leo discusses this in Raissa's absence with his family, who urge him to do so, since the whole family would be sentenced if he refused. When Raissa comes home, she reports that she is pregnant. Leo doesn't manage to arrest them, and the secret police pick them up. Leo is demoted, Raissa is then not allowed to practice her job, and both are exiled to the provincial city of Wolsk .

There Leo is placed under General Nesterow, who is initially hostile to him. Should Leo try to portray him or his colleagues in Moscow as incompetent, he will ensure that Leo ends up in the camp. Raissa is allowed to work in a school, but only as a cleaning lady. Raisa is called by Vasily to leave Leo and live with him in Moscow, which she refuses. She confesses to Leo that she never loved him and that she only dated him because she was afraid of flashing a secret service officer. A world collapses for Leo.

Another boy’s body is found in Wolsk and Leo discusses his theory about the serial killer with General Nesterow. Nesterow is initially outraged that Leo has doubts the official version. Yet both are beginning to investigate. They find out that a total of 44 children were believed to have been murdered by the same perpetrator and that the state had presented innocents as perpetrators and tried each time. They assume that the perpetrator can be found in Rostov .

Leo and Raisa secretly travel to Moscow to investigate. In addition to Alexei, they also meet with Raissa's former superior Ivan Sukow, whom she believes is trustworthy because he protested several times against the arrest of innocent people. But in reality, Sukow is an informant for the terrorist regime. When the two saw through his duplicity, Leo strangled Sukov, who was allegedly on the phone with a sympathizer, with the telephone line, but because of this bogus phone call, the rulers of the regime under the leadership of Vasily are already on the march. Leo and Raissa are arrested, tortured and sent to the camp in Siberia. At the behest of the guards, several inmates try to stab the couple in the prisoner transport.

Leo and Raissa manage to kill the assassin and a security guard. You jump off the train and escape unrecognized. Because of this failure, Kuzmin comes under pressure. He asks Vasily to find the fugitives, otherwise he would drag him to doom. Vasily lets Alexej come into his office and threatens him and his family if he doesn't help. Alexej tells Vasily that Leo will probably look for the murderer in Rostov, then Vasily shoots him.

In Rostov, Leo finally finds the culprit: Vladimir Malevich works for a tractor factory and traveled by train across the country on business, where he always killed the boys near the railroad tracks. He also tells Leo that Leo is a murderer himself. However, while Leo acts of his own free will, he is driven by instincts and doesn't really want to be a murderer. Then Vasily appears and shoots Malevich. Then he wants to murder his mortal enemy Leo, but the latter can knock the weapon out of his hand and a fight to the life and death begins. Leo and Raissa can finally kill Wassili.

When the soldiers and secret service officers appear, Leo tells them that the child murderer murdered the “hero” Vasily. The authorities believe him. Leo and Raissa are rehabilitated, Kuzmin is sent to the Gulag and Leo is offered a position in the police. The child killer is officially referred to as a "werewolf". It was the product of a Nazi drug and was turned over by the Germans while he was a prisoner of war. Leo asks to set up a police department for serial offenders together with Nesterow, which he is allowed to do. Together with Raissa, who wants to stay with him, he adopts the two peasant children who were orphaned by Vasily.

background

The shooting of the film started in June 2013 in Prague , Ostrava and Kladno in the Czech Republic . The film shows clear similarities with the drama Citizen X from 1995. In Russia, the screenings were banned just one day before the premiere date on the grounds that the film would be inappropriate in the run-up to the commemorations at the end of the war. After the Russian decision, the film was also banned in Belarus , Ukraine , Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan . The Ukrainian director and producer Oleksandr Rodnjanskyj criticized the Russian censorship.

reception

The film received mixed to negative reviews. At Rotten Tomatoes , 23% of reviews are positive out of a total of 64 reviews; the average rating is 4.6 / 10. The critical consensus states: "The story of child 44 is gripping and the portrayal of Tom Hardy in the lead role is solid, but overall the film lacks enough thrill." At Metacritic , the film receives a rating of 41/100, based on 25 Reviews. Anke Sterneborg of the Süddeutsche Zeitung criticizes the fact that the film wants to be too much at once, and also criticizes: When trying to cut the lush material down to feature film format, screenwriter Richard Price (“The Wire”) made a few strange decisions. It is particularly fatal that it removes the motive for action from the perpetrator, whose biography in the novel is abysmally interlinked with that of the investigator - and thus the whole story of its pull.

Awards

  • 2016: Central Ohio Film Critics Association 2
    • Tom Hardy was nominated for Actor of the Year (also for Legend, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant)
  • 2015: Golden Trailer Awards
    • Nomination for the best drama poster

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for child 44 . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , May 2015 (PDF; test number: 151 421 K).
  2. ↑ Jen Yamato: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace Thriller 'Child 44' Gets April 2015 Date. Deadline.com, February 18, 2014, accessed July 15, 2014 .
  3. ^ Filming of Tom Rob Smith's Child 44 begins. In: Curtis Brown. August 6, 2013, accessed July 10, 2013 .
  4. ↑ Russia bans American film 'Child 44 ′ because it makes Stalin look bad , Washington Post, April 15, 2015.
  5. ↑ Belarus bans Child 44 movie day after Russia . In: TASS . April 16, 2015. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
  6. ↑ Hollywood movie 'Child 44' will not be shown in Ukraine . In: Ukraine Today . April 17, 2015. Retrieved April 17, 2015.
  7. ↑ American film Child 44 banned in Kazakhstan for distorting history . In: azh.kz .
  8. ↑ Nick Holdsworth: 'Child 44' Ban Rolls Out Across Former Soviet States . In: The Hollywood Reporter . April 17, 2015. Retrieved April 18, 2015.
  9. ↑ Elizabeth Surganov, Sergei Sobolev: Голливудский фильм про СССР сняли с российского проката ( Russian ) In: RBC . April 15, 2015. Retrieved April 18, 2015.
  10. ↑ Child 44. In: Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved April 29, 2015 : "There's a gripping story at the heart of Child 44 and a solid performance from Tom Hardy in the lead, but it all still adds up to a would-be thriller that lacks sufficient thrills."
  11. ^ Child 44. In: Metacritic . Retrieved April 22, 2015 .
  12. ^ Anke Sterneborg: Totally paranoid In: Süddeutsche Zeitung Online, June 3, 2015.