One of the best films i have seen

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

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.

Well now that Russians have been living in the US for generations, it's difficult to accept some of the stereotypes in this movie -- all Russian woman are fat and old looking, for one. Everyone except the elite are sad and deprived. Russian scientists will do anything to protect the state (this refers to the ending bit of commentary where the film makers made fun of the Russian scientist who said she had discovered the new phenomena of non-secretor where the blood type and the semen type can differ.Aside from that, this film stands on its own as good film with a tight script, excellent acting, and enough tension to keep us watching it. Like most reviewers, I stumbled across it accidentally on a movie streaming site.

Wonderful cast. Bit of a flat story line, but was produced for TV so to be expected. Even so, this movie will keep you interested until the end. Good insight into crime fighting behind the iron curtain, and the final scene uncovers stark differences between Western and Soviet justice. How did this person get away with murdering 52 victims before being caught? One of the focal points of the movie reveals the growing bureaucratic incompetency of the crumbling Soviet regime. In spite of this, we see that people are people everywhere with the same passions and concerns. Life continued in the Soviet Union just as it did in the West. And although the world was changing for Russia at the time of these events, yet for ordinary people, life went on.

"Citizen X" is a movie that it will leave you speechless. It is a really good movie and it's worth seeing. It's also a true story relating of a Russian serial killer who kills his victims, he killed 52 people and 35 of them were children under the age of 17.This movie is really a good because it shows us how the USSR worked and how ware the relationships between the simple people and the people of the party. It also show us how the same things changed after the disruption of USSR.In this movie I liked very much the interpretation of Stephen Rea as Lt. Viktor Burakov and Donald Sutherland as Col. Mikhail Fetisov. I think Stephen Rea made his best interpretation in this movie. Max von Sydow as Dr. Alexandr Bukhanovsky made an also good interpretation. This movie it really worth seeing...