Review of Eastern Promises (2007) by Teresa S — 26 Apr 2010

I'd like to just begin by saying I was no fan of A History of Violence. I thought it was an overhyped overly lauded disappointment. It was touted as this great treatise on the nature of violence but all I saw was a poorly scripted mess with a promising premise that devolves into painful stupidity, robotic performances, clunky dialogue & over the top violent set pieces that brought to mind an 80's action movie & just (to me at least) gave the film an air on unintentional humour that had me chuckling at the most inopportune moments (the bit where Tom Stall admonishes his son for being violent by slapping him, that whole exchange, just get's me everytime).

There might be an overlying message about violence in there but it's just too well hidden by an awful film. Though don't take my word for it the general consensus is that A History Of Violence is a masterpiece.

You may be asking yourself why I'm talking about a different film. My reasoning is two fold. Now that I've laid out why I disliked A History of Violence, I don't have to give it a review (snap!!) & ruin my recent trend toward positivity. The other reason, that movie weighed heavily on my mind before I watched Eastern Promises. For the longest time, I couldn't bring myself to watch this movie because of the actor/director pairing of David Cronenberg & Viggo Mortensen.

Don't get me wrong I like a lot of Cronenbergs stuff (Dead Zone, the criminally underrated Spider starring Ralph Fiennes) & Mortensen was/is Aragorn as well as Lalin & Lucifer. But the taint (huh huh "taint") of A History of violence, it poisoned them to me as a combo.

So eventually I bit the bullet, & decided to watch Eastern Promises & within a few minutes of the opening (in my estimation at least) the firm of Cronenberg/Mortensen was completely forgiven.

Eastern Promises is about the inner workings of Russian Organised Crime. But it's also about a midwife (played by a slightly wonkily accented Naomi Watts) & her investigation of the circumstances of a young Russian teenager that dies in childbirth in her ward. She finds a diary which leads her to a Russian club owned by the seemingly lovely old man Semyon (played by Armin Mueller-Stahl). She also encounters his loutish son Kirill (played by the tres excellent Vincent Cassell) & his driver/bodyguard/"undertaker" Nikolai (played by the Viggo Mortensen). They're embroiled in their own mess that relates back to murder of a fellow mobster. These distinct plot threads begin to embroil as the film progresses.

As a whole the story is well constructed. You'll engage with & want to know how everything will resolve itself. The story does start to lose it's way a little before the end with character's deviating from their established persona in a way I didn't find convincing. There's also a twist, that becomes apparent a little too early in the run time. Violence is used sparingly with only the occasion flash, which it turns gives those moments a greater degree of impact.

The performances from the leads are all good. In spite of her aforementioned wonky accent Naomi Watts is well suited to her role. Armin Mueller-Stahl gives equal doses of grandfatherly warmth & subtle menace with just occasional flashes of extreme emotion. Mortensen imbues his character with the right seemingly laissez faire tone but also shows an ability for physicality when required. In my opinion the man that steals the film is Vincent Cassel, he manages to display a ferocious (but obviously) overcompensating bravado. He also properly illustrates the love hate dynamic that exists between his character & the character of Nikolai while Mortensen imbues his character with an obviously protective feeling towards Kirill that is also tinged with a degree of disdain.

Another element I think is worthy of praise is that in spite of the fact that none of the supposed Russian mobsters is actually Russian, none of them sounds like a cartoon Russian stereotype.

Eastern Promises, isn't perfect. The way the story begins to lose the run of itself a little before the end keeps it from that but is still a film that I would heartily recommend.