There’s very little that Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace couldn’t achieve if they set their minds to it. Most recently, Hardy broke the bat while mumbling something about… porn in a harness? Corn on the cob, miss? Born in the darkness? Who could really tell with that mask on?! And Rapace once had to cut an alien squid out of her stomach (I told her not to order from that dodgy Chinese place) before, very literally, side stepping death.
But now director Daniel Espinosa might just give them their toughest challenge yet: Stalinist Russia.
THR reports that Hardy and Rapace are both looking to land starring roles in Child 44, an adaption of Tom Rob Smith’s novel of the same name. The adaptation deal was announced way back in 2007 already, a year before the novel was actually published (because that’s the world we live in nowadays) and Ridley Scott was originally attached to direct. Scott has since retreated to just the producer role, while Espinosa will now be behind the camera.
The Danish born director most recently gave Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds a tour of Cape Town, complete with corrupt government agents and highway car chases (the authentic South African tourist experience!), in the thriller Safe House to mixed critical but positive commercial results.
As to what Catch 44 is actually about, it’s a 1950’s thriller set in Stalin controlled Russia and it sounds rather intriguing.
“There is no crime.”
Stalin’s Soviet Union strives to be a paradise for its workers, providing for all of their needs. One of its fundamental pillars is that its citizens live free from the fear of ordinary crime and criminals.
But in this society, millions do live in fear . . . of the State. Death is a whisper away. The mere suspicion of ideological disloyalty-owning a book from the decadent West, the wrong word at the wrong time-sends millions of innocents into the Gulags or to their executions. Defending the system from its citizens is the MGB, the State Security Force. And no MGB officer is more courageous, conscientious, or idealistic than Leo Demidov.
A war hero with a beautiful wife, Leo lives in relative luxury in Moscow, even providing a decent apartment for his parents. His only ambition has been to serve his country. For this greater good, he has arrested and interrogated.
Then the impossible happens. A different kind of criminal-a murderer-is on the loose, killing at will. At the same time, Leo finds himself demoted and denounced by his enemies, his world turned upside down, and every belief he’s ever held shattered. The only way to save his life and the lives of his family is to uncover this criminal. But in a society that is officially paradise, it’s a crime against the State to suggest that a murderer-much less a serial killer-is in their midst. Exiled from his home, with only his wife, Raisa, remaining at his side, Leo must confront the vast resources and reach of the MBG to find and stop a criminal that the State won’t admit even exists.
In Soviet Russia, movie watches you!
Last Updated: February 1, 2013
