Child 44 (5/10): Anti-Soviet Propaganda in case a new Cold War breaks out.

"There is no murder in paradise.”

Another of my most anticipated films of the year that failed to live up to my expectations. I usually tend to look forward to films based solely on the director, but this time I was excited about the cast: Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, and Noomi Rapace. Child 44 is an adaptation of Tom Rob Smith’s best selling novel directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House) set in Stalin-era Soviet Union. Of course it is easily going to be labelled as anti-Soviet propaganda considering it is based on a novel written by a British author and directed by a Swedish director. The screenwriter, Richard Price (The Color of Money), is American and despite being set in Russia no one in the cast is Russian. Child 44 feels like one of those movies that came out during the Cold War trying to prove to the Western world how awful the Soviet communist regime was. You have British and Swedish actors playing Russian characters, but speaking in English with Russian accents because it wouldn’t be as accessible to us if they had them speaking Russian. I’m not a fan of this style of film making and would much rather them stick with the original language, but we probably would miss out on seeing such a talented cast like this if that were so. The accent issue isn’t the greatest problem with this film however, the tone of the movie is inconsistent and there are several tonal shifts that simply make the story drag at times. Child 44 is 135 minutes long and you feel every minute of it. 

Tom Hardy is Leo Demidov, a Soviet military police officer who was adopted at an early age after the death of his parents. By chance he became a war hero thanks to a picture taken of him waving the Soviet flag over Berlin after their victory. Now in the early 50’s he has an important rank working in Moscow as a military officer married to Raisa (Noomi Rapace) and he enjoys sharing the story of how they met with his fellow officers. He’s idealistic and pursues anyone who is against the Stalin regime labelled as traitors. When a young boy is found dead near a train station the officials dismiss the cause of death as simply an accident, but it is evident that the kid was brutally murdered. But of course under the Soviet regime there can’t be any murders because they’re supposedly living in a perfect society. The kid happened to be the son of one of Leo’s friends, Alexei (Fares Fares), and so he begins having his doubts about the cause of death. However that doesn’t go well with Major Kuzmin (Vincent Cassel) who warns him to leave it at that. After successfully capturing a traitor named Anatoly (Jason Clarke), the officers get a list of names of other suspects from him. Raisa happens to be on that list and Leo is asked to testify against his wife and bring her in, which seemed to be a way of testing his commitment to the regime. He refuses to turn her in and is disgraced, demoted, and exiled to a small town near Moscow to serve under General Mikhail Nesterov (Gary Oldman). When another child victim is found there in similar conditions, Leo convinces Mikhail to look into it and they secretly begin investigating the case.

The premise of the story is very interesting, but unfortunately this period piece takes its time to introduce each character. I’ve read that the first cut of the film was over 5 hours long and you can tell here that it hasn’t been edited in the best way because there are several tonal shifts throughout the film. Price was given the almost impossible task of adapting the screenplay of this novel without trying to leave any of the subplots out. There are several elements of the story that could’ve been ignored and which would’ve allowed for a much better pacing, but unfortunately every time the thrills began to draw me back to the story they introduced another narrative arc that drowned the pacing once again. If the film focused exclusively on the search for this mysterious serial killer it could’ve been a strong thriller because the performances in this film were all solid. Tom Hardy is great in his role and he alone almost makes the film worth recommending. Gary Oldman, Joel Kinnaman, Noomi Rapace, Fares Fares, Paddy Considine, Vincent Cassel are all convincing as well, but they don’t get as much screen time and some of their narrative arcs aren’t as interesting.        

My Review: RoboCop (6/10)

"They want a product with a conscious. Something that knows what it feels like to be human. We gonna put a man inside a machine." 

You don't necessarily have to be from the 80's to have heard about the cult classic and ultra-violent RoboCop which served as a witty and funny satire of its time. As with most remakes I always go into them with very low expectations, so when I heard Brazilian director, Jose Padilha (known in South America for his successful film Elite Squad and its sequel) was working on a reboot of the franchise I wasn't very excited. Despite not loving this remake, I was surprised that this film took such a different approach from the original and stood out on its own. Fans of the original might be disappointed that this isn't a fun action film. Padilha has made an ambitious film that differs greatly from the original one by focusing on modern political themes and powerful corporate agendas. It also humanizes the main character and tries to explore his emotions as he has to learn to deal with his new robotic self. There are some very important scenes Joel Kinnaman shares with Gary Oldman as Padilha plays on the dynamics between them and raises various ethical questions along the way. Oldman's character struggles with how much freedom he should give to his creation while being pushed by Corporate greed to deliver a product. Padilha does explore these political and social issues pretty well, while dealing with other concepts such as the illusion of free will and media bias (which we see through Jackson's character). Where this film failed for me however was in the action sequences which at times felt like a video game. Many scenes felt like I was watching my friends play Call of Duty, and I felt detached. So I can see why this film might upset fans because it isn't an action packed film, but more of a sci-fi exploration of modern political and social fears. It isn't groundbreaking, but Robocop stands on its own apart from the original as a somewhat different film.

Joshua Zetumer adapted the screenplay for this remake and he did a decent job at modernizing several of the issues the story presents. It's clearly more character driven than the original, but lacks that witty and sharp humor that made the original such a beloved classic. The film opens in 2028 as we listen to a news report from Pat Novak (Samuel L Jackson) setting up the stage. He's a pro-robot TV host that is trying to convince Americans to embrace robot technology like the rest of the world has. OmniCorp is the multinational corporation that runs this robot technology that has functioned as the military force keeping peace across the globe. Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) is the billionaire running OmniCorp that realizes that if he's going to change American public opinion about robots he is going to need to present a more human one. OmniCorp finds the opportunity they were looking for when a Detroit cop named Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is critically injured after trying to bring down a couple of corrupt cops and a big local dealer. Sellars convinces Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman), a pioneer in robotic prosthetics, to save Alex and turn him into a part-robot, part-man police officer. With Alex's wife, Clara's (Abbie Cornish) permission they save his life, but they plan to keep him doped so he will follow their orders. However Alex proves to be stronger than they expected and he sets out to find justice against those that tried to murder him.

This new RoboCop turns out to be a very different movie than the original taking itself too seriously and trying to raise important ethical questions along the way. This isn't something we were expecting as viewers from a RoboCop film, but somehow Padilha manages to make it enjoyable in a very different way. I liked the way how the true villains of the film were not the criminals on the street, but the corporate giants who were trying to force their agenda. That is why the film focuses much more on those characters than the ones we usually expect, which in this case would be the criminals Alex was pursuing first. RoboCop has many flaws and is overly ambitious lacking the humor and poignant satire from the original, but it works if judged on its own without having to compare the two films. I barely recommend this one so go see it at your own risk.