Although it’s set in the paranoid nightmare of 50’s Russia, this is basically a murder mystery. Tom Hardy plays a secret police agent who sets out to track down a serial killer, but since “there is no murder in paradise, he encounters barriers from the political regime. It obviously adapted from a novel, because there’s a sprawl and scope to the story that veers away from the primary plot. Sometimes these detours confuse matters and muddy the focus. At other times, the convenient coincidences strain believability. While the creation of the era’s mistrustful denouncements and grim conditions is captivating, the rambling narrative dilutes the dramatic power.

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