CHILD 44 (15)

3 stars

Things get off to an awkward and stilted start in this well-mounted thriller, first with a prologue set in Ukraine in 1933, where the on-screen text informs us of Stalin's systematic starving of the people, leading to thousands of deaths. Then we jump to the end of the war, as the Russians achieve victory in Berlin and we briefly get introduced to soldier Leo (Tom Hardy).

By the time we finally settle down, it's 1953 and Leo is an investigator for the MGB, a state-run security force that essentially operates as secret police. He's on the hunt for rebels, so-called traitors who are supposed to be spying for the West.

This is where we get our first decent bit of character detail, as Leo is shown to be a hard and determined soldier, but not unfeeling, as he tracks down a rebel (Jason Clarke). And yet the film still can't make up its mind, as the son of one of Leo's army buddies is taken and murdered by an unseen man.

But there's more still, with decisions of honour or betrayal leading to consequences and relocation, which is where Gary Oldman finally turns up as a general to whom Leo is assigned. With so many characters popping up throughout, there's a large list of potential suspects, although the whodunit element gets jettisoned before too long.

There's an awful lot going on here though: is it still a war film? Is it a serial killer movie? Is it about the birth of secret police? The climate of fear and suspicion created in post-war Russia is probably the most interesting aspect.

Based on the first of a trilogy of novels by British author Tom Rob Smith, it all seems like the kind of thing that probably worked better on the page but which comes across as overstuffed when it hits the screen.

There's simply far too much here to fit convincingly into a single film, with Leo also tasked with finding more traitors, including the possibility that his wife (Noomi Rapace) is one of them.

Rapace has been ill-served with her English language roles lately, including alongside Hardy in last year's The Drop, but she's on much firmer ground here.

Unfortunately the air is thick with chewy Russian accents, and you kind of have to wonder why. Hardy is commanding in a quiet and intense performance, but when he and Oldman go face to face, the resemblance to Oldman's appearances in Friends is hard to shake off.

A fairly hefty budget has been lavished on it, and with its parade of stars and strong period flavour, Child 44 is a glossy piece of filmmaking. It's uncompromising and dark and tension is well built, making for an interesting effort that's deeply flawed but watchable nonetheless.

Director: Daniel Espinosa

Running time: 137 mins

THE SALVATION (15)

3 stars

It's rare to see a western told from a true immigrant point of view, but this Danish production tries that, at least for a while, delivering its strongest scenes when it does. It's 1871, and Jon (Mads Mikkelsen) is a former soldier trying to get a foothold in frontier land after being apart for seven years from his wife and son. They join him in the States, only to be killed by two drunken outlaws, whom Jon deals with in short order.

But one of them was the brother of another crazed gunslinger (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), setting him and Jon on a collision course. Playing on the classic western trope of the weak town living in fear, for a while The Salvation threatens something meaty, but in truth it's a little too silly to emerge as truly substantial.

Any film with a tagline 'Bad Men Will Bleed' is setting itself up with a need to cash some pretty big cheques, and it has its fair share of fine moments, but gives up its look at newcomers trying to cope in a foreign land to focus on bloodthirsty shootouts.

Mikkelsen makes for an extremely convincing western leading man, and this is a film from a director who has certainly watched his Ford and his Leone. But while handsomely shot, some night-time exteriors have had a CGI touch-up, as though the technicians didn't have the skill to light them properly.

And dialogue can be clunky, like the script was written in Danish and simply passed through some translation software without then polishing the result, so that what starts out with immense promise ends up being a bit of a letdown.

Director: Kristian Levring

Running time: 92 mins

A LITTLE CHAOS (12A)

4 stars

Alan Rickman's second film as director has been a long time coming, but there's an awful lot to like about this gentle and yet quietly powerful period drama.

A Little Chaos is set in 17th century France in the court of King Louis XIV, where his head gardener (Matthias Schoenaerts) is tasked with sculpting the royal gardens at Versailles, and makes the most unusual selection of Madame De Barra (Kate Winslet) to design and manage a particular section.

It's witty, nicely played and above all has plenty to say about female roles in the workplace and beyond and, by extension, how the shame of sexism still lingers 350 years later.

Rickman gives himself a droll smaller role as the king, and his pair of scenes with Winslet are probably the best in the film, though her romance with Schoenaerts isn't entirely believable. It suffers a little by trying to tidy up all the pieces of backstory, but that doesn't detract too much from a lovely piece of storytelling.

Director: Alan Rickman

Running time: 117 mins

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (15)

2 stars

The self-referencing nature of this horror remake looks to be of more appeal to its makers than being a well crafted thriller in its own right.

From the very start, the original 1976 version exists as a movie which the characters in this one watch and talk about and which takes place in the town where the events depicted took place, which was itself inspired by real murders that took place in the town in 1946. Got that?

So anyway, a masked slasher is stalking the locals of Texarkana in ways similar to the first film, with the young woman who survived an attack trying to solve the mystery of who the killer is/was.

It desperately wants to be like Scream, judging by the occasionally goofy tone, but Scream was also a darn fine horror on top of being clever, which this never manages in its samey fright scenes.

Appalling editing doesn't help in these sequences, nor does having a killer shoot people from hundreds of feet away make for anything like a memorable bogeyman.

Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Running time: 84 mins