A mystery thriller with a stacked cast, including Gary Oldman and Tom Hardy, has just found a new streaming home in the UK.
An adaptation of the 2008 novel of the same name by Tom Rob Smith, Child 44 is set during Stalin's rule of the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
It follows war hero, Captain Leo Demidov (Hardy), as he investigates a streak of child murders and is ostracised for not following orders.
After he and his wife Raisa (Noomi Rapace) are relocated when he's demoted to a militia position, Leo meets his new commander, Colonel Mikhail Nesterov (Oldman), who agrees to help with the serial killer investigation.
Originally released in 2015, the movie is now available to watch on Prime Video in the UK.
Also starring Jason Clarke, Vincent Cassel, Paddy Considine, and Charles Dance, Child 44 is directed by Daniel Espinosa, who was also behind the camera for 2022's box office bomb Morbius.
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Child 44 suffered a similar fate, becoming a commercial and critical flop despite the script penned by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Richard Price. Price also wrote Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money, for which he received an Oscar nod, and TV episodes of acclaimed series, including The Wire and The Night Of.
While viewers on IMDb have praised Child 44 as "gritty and tough", critics on Rotten Tomatoes have been less than impressed.
Espinosa's serial killer thriller has a meagre critics' rating of 30% as The Irish Times called it "a confusing bore" with a "perfunctory" and "implausible" solution.
RogerEbert.com slammed the movie as "equally bloated and scatterbrained", while Entertainment Weekly described it as "as tedious as a bottomless bowl of borscht".
The Guardian's more lenient review found some positives in Hardy's performance, writing: "Tom Hardy brings his robust, muscular presence to the role of Leo and he is watchable enough, but the forensic and psychological aspects are just dull; there is no fascination in the detection process."
Child 44 is streaming on Prime Video in the UK.
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Reporter, Digital Spy
Stefania is a freelance writer specialising in TV and movies. After graduating from City University, London, she covered LGBTQ+ news and pursued a career in entertainment journalism, with her work appearing in outlets including Little White Lies, The Skinny, Radio Times and Digital Spy.
Her beats are horror films and period dramas, especially if fronted by queer women. She can argue why Scream is the best slasher in four languages (and a half).
