Child 44 (film)

Child 44 is a 2015 British-American mystery thriller film directed by Daniel Espinosa, written by Richard Price, and based on Tom Rob Smith's 2008 novel of the same name. The film stars an ensemble cast featuring Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman, Paddy Considine, Jason Clarke, and Vincent Cassel. It was released on 17 April 2015. to mostly negative reviews, and bombed at the box office. Both the novel and the film are very loosely based on the case of Andrei Chikatilo, the Soviet serial killer portrayed in the earlier film Citizen X.

Reception
Critical response to Child 44 was mostly negative. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 25%, based on 71 reviews, with an average rating of 4.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "There's a gripping story at the heart of Child 44 and a solid performance from Tom Hardy in the lead, but it all still adds up to a would-be thriller that lacks sufficient thrills."

Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw gave the film 2 stars out of 5 and reported that "Tom Rob Smith's page-turning bestseller from 2008 has been turned into a heavy, indigestible meal of a film, full of actors speaking English with very heavy Russian accents..."