Beautiful, moving film.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Not so much a horror film, per se. More, a crime docudrama with an anti-soviet propaganda vibe. Based on the story of real life slasher, Russian serial killer, "The Butcher of Rostov"- who killed 52 people, 35 of which were children under the age of 17.It takes place in a rural area of Russia, where children are being found dead in a woodland area next to a communal farm. Someone has being preying on the poor decrepit and weak. Luring them into the woods and killing them.The local forensics analyst is the only one who seems to actually care, so he is promoted to being head detective on the case. According to the film, the Russians believed that serial killers were a specifically western/American phenomenon, and did not want to admit such things were occurring in their state.The bureaucracy is clearly more concerned with exploiting the murders to target the homosexual community. So the man is having a hard time getting anything done amidst the sea of incompetence and arrogance he is forced to wade through.He does actually arrest the guy, after witnessing the man, first hand, talking to children at the railway station he suspects the man uses to target his victims.But, because the man is a Communist party member, they force him to let him go...and the murders continue.It eventually takes a military effort to catch the same guy again. People move up the chain of command. And victims families are left to mourn.Of course they execute him and that's that. But it's a crazy story nonetheless.Interesting film based on a real life horror story. Stars Donald Sutherland, Stephen Rea and Jeffrey DeMunn (as the killer).Definitely worth watching if you are into the whole serial killer thing.6 out of 10.

Such terrible detective work resulted in so many dead who should not have died if the search for the serial killer was even competent, let alone good. The killer could have been caught so much earlier than the 11 years it finally took due to awful detective work that did not even consider two key tactics not used early on....those of surveillance and decoys. Once the killer's MO was discovered and his identity was suspected early on, he should have been placed under close surveillance 24/7, with special attention given to RR stations after those locations were determined to be the ones most likely to expose the suspect in the act of enticing his next victim. Also, using a decoy would have supplemented the first tactic and may have been even more immediately successful. Absolutely the worst police work I have ever seen in a modern film story, and totally embarrassing to anyone who has ever been on the the job, but may have been somewhat realistic considering that it happened in Russia in the 80s.That said, the movie was a pretty slow slog with little progress through the years, albeit massively hindered by many total political incompetents with their communist militaristic mindset and rigidity. Only by the persistence of the impassioned doctor(Rea)leading the case and the understanding and supportive colonel(Sutherland)in charge of it all was this case finally solved after too many years, all the while using archaic medical tech and police work that allowed so many killings to occur that never should have happened. Without those two dedicated men to find the killer eventually, it surely would never have been solved. A slowly involving story, but maddening for all the incompetence and posturing instead of good police work.

"Citizen X" from 1995, produced by HBO, is based on the true story of the Andrei Chikatilo investigation. Chikatilo (played by Jeffrey DeMunn) was a Russian serial killer who murdered over 50 people, many 17 years of age or under, until he was finally caught.Stephen Rea plays Viktor Burakov, a police detective put in charge of the case in 1983. Due to the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, he is unable to get anything that will help him - that being extra men, computers, and the ability to access records from the FBI. The last element was a point of pride, as the Communists did not want the U.S. to know how far behind they were.Frustrated, Burakov doggedly works, with some support from Colonel Mikhail Fetisov (Donald Sutherland), a man who acquiesces to the unreasonable demands of his superiors, but feels for Burakov. Because of the problems in SU, it takes Burakov 7 years of hard work to find the killer.One problem, a fascinating one, is that the killer's blood type is A, but the semen is type AB, which is why, after he was originally arrested early in the investigation, he had to be released. I scanned the story of this case, and the film seems to be fairly accurate.Besides Sutherland, Ray, and DeMunn, the cast includes Max von Sydow as a psychiatrist who writes a profile of the killer, Imelda Staunton as Viktor's wife, Josh Ackland, and John Wood - a very distinguished cast. It's no surprise that they all do a terrific job.Jeffrey DeMunn as Chikatilo gives a chilling performance of a meek, impotent man who can only find satisfaction in killing. But the one holds the film together is Stephen Rea with his beautiful performance as a quietly determined, frustrated, and empathic man who is determined to bring the killer to justice. He and Donald Sutherland build a wonderful camaraderie as the film goes on.Highly recommended, and though this could have been gorier, some of what they show is gory enough for me.

What is is brilliant about this story is the persistence of the lead detective to find the killer.Interestingly the Commissar said that 'there are no killers in the Soviet Union, that is in decadent western societies" Of course we all get the point. But here in the mid-west in a college town in a lefty book store of the the owners actually said that crime in America is because they are a capitalistic empire. Some left wing ideas never die.Now, back to the movie, it was great and the quips by the Colonel and his astute observations or Soviet society were appro. In fact, most Russians found ways to work outside the system.But my favorite scene was when they caught Chilikto He is in a park and children are playing the the plain clothes police come up on him from the sides, front and back and tell him to 'keep walking'.. One of the most brilliant arrests I have ever seein. The opposite of course of our cops yelling for him to get on the ground and every manner of gun pointed at him.Great film.