Review of Eastern Promises (2007) by Martinb. — 22 Sep 2007

I've always wanted to share my thoughts about movies since I watched Transformers, which in my opinion is one of the best action movies to come out this year. For someone who grew up watching the cartoon, the movie was a dream come true, and I also believe Michael Bay(the director) put a lot of us to shame by delivering a worthy product .

.. but I digress. My intention is to share thoughts on movies I love like the one I just saw, and ones I truly loathe and would gladly request for $9 back...case in point - "The Reaping" "Eastern Promises" is movie directed by David Cronenberg.

You may remember him from "A History of Violence". Every one remembers that movie...Seeing Maria Bello in her cheer leader outfit alone was worth the price of admission... then there was the sex scene on the steps.

I suggest you rent or purchase it immediately. Back to "Eastern Promises"...The main actors are Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel and Armin Mueller-Stahl; I'll get to information about their performances soon enough.

Without giving much away, the story is basically about a nurse who unfortunately witnesses a 14 year old Russian girl giving birth and dying during labor. She embarks on a quest to find out more about the girl's family and also have her diary translated.

On the nurse's quest of discovery, she ends up getting involved with some really vile people, mainly the Russian crime family - Vory V Zakone. The rest of the movie unravels the mystery behind the dead girl, and eventually the father of the baby.

Warning! If you are not a fan of violent movies, you will not enjoy this movie. There's enough extreme violence to make the toughest guy squirm. One scene in the steam room is particularly disturbing to watch.

I was impressed by all the actors. Naomi Watts, who I last saw playing the love interest of a mega-sized gorilla, put on quite a performance. Her character is the nurse who drove the story, but this is not a role she'll be remembered for.

..Armin Mueller-Stahl plays the owner of a restaurant and is also affiliated with the Vory V Zakone. Vincent Cassel plays his crazy son Kirill, who much to his father's chagrin, is also rumored to be gay.

The true star of the movie is Viggo, who plays Nikolai, a mysterious driver who definitely wants to move up in the family. His russian is fluent, and his accent is perfect. It's almost hard to imagine him speaking in another accent after this movie.

He accent and grammar really did sound like his spoke a Slavic language natively. It was very interesting to watch him play his role so flawlessly. In all, this was a pretty good movie. I believe David Cronenberg and Viggo should make more movies together.

They certainly have a formula that works.