An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a nice cast involved, I was quite eager to check it out. Unfortunately, I was surprised by how half-baked the damned thing actually turned out to be. I mean, it did have some potential but there was something slightly misguided about making a movie dealing with a Soviet story with a Swedish director and an international cast with not a single Russian actor involved. Eventually, the biggest issue was with the story though. For example, the introduction which was obviously to present the main character was just awkward. Basically, the whole idea was to introduce Leo Demidov as a surviving orphan and then as  a hero soldier so you get back-to-back 2 clumsy jumps in time but, when you think about it, wouldn’t it have made the character more interesting if we didn’t know this and if we did discover it later on? Then, it took me a while to understand where the damned thing was getting but, to be honest, I don’t think the makers really knew either. Indeed, they basically tried to mix a vintage thriller taking place in the Soviet Union with a drama dealing with the Soviet dictatorship and how it destroyed so many lifes but the end-result was pretty much an overlong mess. Concerning the cast (Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman, Vincent Cassel, Gary Oldman, Paddy Considine, Jason Clarke, Tara Fitzgerald), it was by far the best thing in this movie and they all did what they could with this material but most of their characters were rather poorly developed except for the main character played by Tom Hardy. Anyway, to conclude, even if it turned out to be rather disappointing, I still think it is worth a look but there is no doubt that it could and/or should have been so much better.