Child 44.

While browsing movies on Letterboxd, I found:

Child 44 (2015).

A movie set in The Soviet Union starring Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman sounded amazing so I sat down and gave it a go.

The story with mild, mild spoilers is this: Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy), hero of WWII is an officer in the MGB, the pre-precursor of the KGB. He is married to the love of his life Raisa (Noomi Rapace), and he is good at his job. A child is found dead, clearly murdered, but Soviet doctrine states that there are no murders in paradise, and that serial killers are a product of capitalism, so the verdict is accidental death. Shortly thereafter Leo falls from grace and is sent to a small industrial town with Raisa. Another kid turns up dead, and he just can't ignore it anymore, state or no state.

If that sounds familiar, the story is inspired by the hunt for real life serial killer Chikatilo.

I was really hesitant to even write about this movie. Child 44 is an interesting mix of quality and problems. The actors are amazing. Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Charles Dance (one scene only), Vincent Cassel and more is a great cast. No complaints there, they knock it out of the park.

Visually, Child 44 is amazing. The props department outdid themselves. Everything looks amazing. Sure there are some errors, but unless you are an expert, you really can't tell. Full points here.

The script? Now we're in trouble. The movie is 137 minutes long and it wastes so much time. The initial setup is good, the introduction of Leo and his colleagues is good, but then it goes off the rails a lot. Child 44 is based on a novel with the same name by Tom Rob Smith and I saw a reviewer claim that they took a real page turner and made a clunky, slow and boring movie. I don't agree with that statement, but I can see where that person is coming from.

My biggest problem with the story, is focus. It should be about catching a depraved serial killer in a land where that can't happen, but that is almost a side note when you look at what they spent time on. In the end the inhumanity of the Soviet system is far worse than a person who kills children, bizarre a statement as it is.

Child 44 goes back and forth seemingly unsure of that to do. There are scenes that are really good, and I love Raisa who goes from an unhappy wife to an equal partner essential to the story. But on the other hand they set up things that go nowhere, and other things aren't explained at all.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes and no. I'm still very conflicted. The good parts are really good, but that bad parts come so close to taking over. I do not regret watching Child 44 but it should have been so much better than what we got. I also can't help compare it to Citizen X (1995) which is about the real life hunt for Chikatilo, and is a better movie. In the end you should watch it if the subject matter interests you, otherwise give it a miss.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

The Third Man

This week I watched:

The Third Man (1949).

Holly Martens (Joseph Cotten), an out of work author of western novels, arrives in bombed out Vienna on the invitation of his childhood friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Harry has offered him a job, but upon arrival, Martens learns that Lime is dead, having been hit by a car. At the funeral, he meets Harry's girlfriend Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) and becomes smitten by her. He also runs into the British military police as Vienna is split into four zones administered by the British, the US, the French and the Soviets respectively. The police really wants him to go home, but shocked and saddened by his friends death, Martens starts to ask questions and soon discovers that the story of the accident varies depending on who's describing it. He meets some of Harry's shady friends and things start to take a very sinister turn. He discovers that some saw a third man at the scene of the accident and he becomes obsessed with finding him.

The Third Man was directed by Sir Carol Reed with a young Guy Hamilton as assistant director. Some rumors claimed that Orson Welles shadow directed the movie, but that has been debunked.

The plot and the setting in The Third Man are both good. Finding out what happened to a dead friend is hardly new but it works well especially when married to the paranoid setting of post war Vienna. The movie is rife with people looking suspicious and furtive. Since the black market was not just prevalent but a necessity for the survival of so many, it makes sense that no one wants to answer questions about anything, especially not when asked by a stranger who is also a foreigner. This heightens the sense of paranoia enormously.

The cinematography is amazing, absolutely first class. Some scenes were shot in a studio, but the majority was shot on location in the actual ruined Vienna. Reed used a lot of Dutch angles which when combined with the suspicious atmosphere mentioned above really pushes the fear and uncertainty to new levels. For me, this is the main star of the movie.

Speaking of stars, the actors range from solid to great. Being a thriller/noir from '49 it is natural that the method of acting feels a bit alien to a modern viewer, but once your brain adjusts you can really sit back and enjoy yourself.

The one big issue for me is the music. For the absolute majority of the movie your ears are assailed by jaunty zither music. Nothing bad by itself but the melody is too circus-y meaning that it works well for the few comedic scenes but clashes horribly when the tension surges. A man running for his life should not be accompanied by a happy tune. Audiences back then might have thought it appropriate, but I did not like it.

So, do I recommend this movie? Absolutely! It is a bit slow, but from beginning to end it was a joy to watch. The Third Man is of course a product of its time, but what a product! If you like or can at least stomach black and white movies, do yourself a solid and watch The Third Man.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Johnny Handsome

Quite by accident, I stumbled across a movie that had completely gone under my radar:

Johnny Handsome (1989).

Johnny (Mickey Rourke) is a career criminal whose face has been severely deformed since birth. His best friend is hard up for money and begs Johnny to plan a heist, something he's really good at. Two others are brought in for the job, Rafe (Lance Henriksen) and Sunny (Ellen Barkin). The job goes wrong and Johnny ends up in prison. There he is put in a program that gives him plastic surgery as a way to rehabilitate him. Police Lieutenant Drones (Morgan Freeman) does not believe Johnny has turned over a new leaf, and the question is, has he?

On paper, Johnny Handsome should be a slam dunk. Apart from the actors I listed above, we also get Forest Whitaker, Elizabeth McGovern and quite a few other faces I've seen before, but there is a fundamental flaw I can't put my finger on. Don't get me wrong, Johnny Handsome is not a bad movie at all, but it is lacking something. Once I was done with it, I went to IMDB like always and saw that Al Pacino was originally slated to play Johnny but despite several rewrites he dropped out feeling that the script would never be able to rise above B-movie status, and he was right. There is of course nothing wrong with B-movies, but unless you set out to make one, something has gone wrong.

The story is pretty good, the actors are by themselves excellent and the cinematography is decent. The dialogue isn't exactly inspired, but this isn't the kind of movie that should have Tarantino style memorable one liners. It's more somber and serious than that.

As I'm writing this, I think the major problem sits in Johnny Handsome himself. We spend quite a lot of time in the prison hospital, yet we don't really know much about him as a person besides his deformed face (excellent make up work btw). His struggle between going straight and dating McGovern, or going back to his old life becomes too shallow. I do think the story is good, but the movies doesn't have enough time to really explore it. I would have liked to see more of Rafe, but he is a shallow and pretty baseline villain who seems to be allergic to sleeves. Sunny is more interesting, and Barkin said she loved that character because she got to be as bad as she wanted without some lame excuse why this poor girl turned out wrong. She's bad and she loves it.

Initially I was disappointed with Johnny Handsome, but it did stay with me. One part of my dissatisfaction is my own fault. It takes place in New Orleans and was made two years after Angel Heart which is one of my all time favorite movies. I subconsciously expected Johnny Handsome to be a bit more like Angel Heart which is dumb. They have nothing in common except location and Mickey Rourke. With that realization I had to rethink it and so I'm writing this.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, but you need to be realistic with what it is. Johnny Handsome is a solid movie about choice and consequence. It sadly isn't as good as it could have been, but that is neither here no there. It is the movie it is, and you can certainly do much worse than watching Johnny Handsome.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!