Child 44

[peter]

Set in a USSR in Stalin's early 1950's, this film bombed in the box-office and was slaughtered alive by the critics, not least for the 'borscht-laden accents' Tom hardy et al used to convey the idea of 'yes - this is the bad old soviets up to their tricks'. But having said all that I quite liked it. Hardy is a genuinely difficult character to judge [is he a monster or just keeping his head down in a system that will kill you if it so much as turns it's head in your direction] and his attempts to get to grips with a series of child killings that the state refuses to recognise as such is always going to end in tears.

His relationship with his wife is a sub-plot that the critics again didn't go for, but I found his plight striking chords of sympathy in me and feel that it's inclusion added to the films depth. All in all I give this a pretty decent score out of ten and think that its one case where you should give the expert view a miss and take a punt on it. you may come out the other side pleasantly surprised.