Isaac Feldberg’s 10 Worst Movies Of 2015

8) Child 44

It pains me to put a movie starring Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman and Noomi Rapace on this list, but boy does Child 44 deserve it. As unappealing and flavorless as a cold bowl of Borscht, this is a thriller stunningly devoid of thrills from first frame to last.

The story, ineptly handled by screenwriter Richard Price (his work here is career-worst), centers on a Soviet security officer in Stalin’s Russia hunting for a state-protected serial killer, but good luck making heads or tails of it – no other plot seen on screen this year was as tangled or tedious.

Adding to the confusion are a glut of accents ranging from passable (Hardy) to laughable (Oldman), all delivered with the same dour severity, and a shockingly slack, criminally overlong narrative less inviting than a Russian winter.

Don’t feel too bad for Hardy – he did wind up toplining one of the year’s very best movies with Mad Max: Fury Road – but it’s still a damn shame that no one can seem to figure out what to do with Noomi Rapace post-Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.