In the end, the film lacks an imagination, and that unfortunately winds up dragging it through the mud.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 23, 2015

Hardy is very odd, as usual.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 19, 2015

The story is a confusing bore that leads achingly slowly to a solution as perfunctory as it is implausible.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 18, 2015

Given these actors and the ravishing decrepitude of the locations and costumes and the lustrous cinematography of Oliver Wood, I found it more than watchable the whole way through.

| Apr 18, 2015

Equally bloated and scatterbrained.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Apr 17, 2015

"Child 44" is involving despite itself.

| Apr 16, 2015

In such a bleak and distorted world, it is perverse to try to tell a whodunit story with conventional heroes and villains -- and yet that is what this misguided and contradictory film attempts.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 16, 2015

Tom Hardy rolls his Russian accent around his mouth like its a shot of vodka to be savoured. With his Soviet-issue brutalist haircut and shambling bear's gait, plus the accent as thick as borscht, he inhabits completely the part of Leo Demidov.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 16, 2015

[An] unrelentingly grim, plodding, and close-to-incoherent adaptation of Tom Rob Smith's best-selling mystery.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Apr 16, 2015

It's as tedious as a bottomless bowl of borscht.

| Original Score: C- | Apr 16, 2015

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.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 16, 2015

What "Child 44" most resembles is a rushed and crowded pilot for a television drama.

| Apr 16, 2015

The usual serial-killer thriller in Soviet drag.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 16, 2015

Ultimately, what we have is a bloated, grim, underwhelming affair, which is unfortunate - because the movie starts out with a lot going for it.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Apr 16, 2015

A muddled, mumbling thriller that never gets us in an iron grip.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 16, 2015

For long stretches, it's dull and plodding, chugging along on the fumes of its earnest intentions. Still, there are worse ways to kill two hours than watching Hardy work his sturdy magic.

| Apr 16, 2015

When it finally gets going, it becomes gloweringly compelling ...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 16, 2015

Child 44 could have been far more compelling had it dug deeper into its political thriller layers and not drifted into yet another story of a diabolical killer on the loose.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 16, 2015

Despite gritty atmosphere and a sometimes smart script by the estimable Richard Price, whose credits include "The Wire," "Child 44" can't sort out the basics.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 15, 2015

The film is at once devoted to corroborating and casting an exaggerated light on Soviet paranoia and the state's rhetoric of unmasking its enemies.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Apr 15, 2015