Review of Eastern Promises (2007) by Saiju G — 30 Jan 2011

Russian mobsters...gotta love 'em.

Eastern Promises is the most recent masterpiece from the legendary filmmaker David Cronenberg. It is a tale about Russian mobsters in England that are being threatened by a local nurse, who finds a dead woman's infant child, and wants to know what happened. Viggo Mortensen is flawless in this film, the only way he could have been more Russian was if he was actually from Russia, it just sucks that he had to be in this film the same year Daniel Day Lewis did There Will Be Blood, if he hadn't...he woulda won the Oscar.

It's not just Mortensen that is amazing, everything about this film is amazing. From the first scene until the final frame, this film is loaded to the brim with relentless graphic violence, but it's not grotesque in the sense that it is gratuitous, it is about as graphic as you can get without being considered excessive. There aren't that many violent scenes, but the scenes that contain violence are jaw-dropping, particularly a specific fight scene that I think is one of the best fight scenes in recent years. Not to spoil that scene, let's just say Mortensen is a brave, brave man.

I loved pretty much everything about this film. The story isn't your typical mob movie, it's very...Cronenberg-y. The acting is sensational in every sense of the word, and the rest of the film is just dripping with excellence. This is a fantastic movie.