Review by Jeff Swindoll
David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen score once again with this violent thriller about the Russian criminal element. The film has shades of the Godfather, but has an uglier and perhaps more realistic view of this seedy side of society. Both the directing and acting is top notch.
A young girl stumbles into a London convenience store and passes out. It turns out the fourteen-year-old girl is pregnant and is rushed to a nearby hospital. She is put into the care of midwife Anna Ivanovna (Naomi Watts) and unfortunately the girl dies in childbirth. The only thing the girl leaves behind is a diary that is in Russian. Anna may have a Russian last name but she can’t translate the diary.
She takes it to her Uncle Stephan (Jerzy Skolimowski) and he takes one look at the pages and tells Anna and her mother Helen (Sinead Cusack) that some secrets are best left unknown and refuses to translate any more of the diary. Anna finds a business card to a local Russian restaurant and goes to see the owner Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) to see if he can give any indication of where the girl’s parents or family is so that the newborn can be returned to them.
Outside of the establishment she runs into Semyon’s son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and his driver Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). That’s all the plot detail that I’m going to give you since the drama of the film lies in the discoveries that we make about the characters.
Eastern Promises covers the Russian mafia that is present in London. As David Cronenberg says in the special features this community in London was widely unknown until about halfway during filming the former KGB agent was poisoned by a radioactive element and this community was all over the news.
The best (and probably most made) comparison to this film is Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. This is both a good comparison and a bad one. Coppola tends to romanticize and make operatic his gangsters whereas Cronenberg does some of this, but it is slight.
His gangsters are really nasty and behave in some extremely deviant behavior. The resolution of who exactly got the fourteen-year-old pregnant is especially disturbing.
Thankfully these revelations are just talked about and not shown on camera, not that there’s some other equally disturbing bits that actually are shown on camera. The acting is top notch all around with Mortensen getting deep into his character by going to Russia (seemingly on his own dime) and interacting with some unsavory characters to find his take on Nikolai.
Props also have to go to Mueller-Stahl who is also excellent in the “Don” role. In some strange way this almost seems like a prequel to History of Violence even though it’s not meant to be.
There are some eleventh hour revelations about some of the characters that will make you wish that Cronenberg and company will delve more into this twisted world in a sequel since you’re just beginning to get interested in the characters when the movie comes to a conclusion. Eastern Promises is a truly excellent movie and another fine film from Cronenberg and Mortensen.
Eastern Promises is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. A fullscreen version is available separately. Sadly, special features are rather sparse for such a fine film.
The 10-minute “Secrets and Stories” interviews Cronenberg, Sinead Cusack, Mortensen, Olegar Fedoro (“The Tattooist”), Mueller-Stahl, writer Steven Wright, Vincent Cassel, and Naomi Watts about making the film. The 6-minute “Marked for Life” goes a little more into the tattoos used in the film and their importance to the mafia types in this culture.
Unfortunately, that’s all.A commentary from Cronenberg would’ve been most welcome. It makes me wonder if this film gets some attention during the awards season that we may get a more comprehensive special edition somewhere down the road.
An excellent character study from both David Cronenberg and actor Viggo Mortensen and worthy of the nominations that is has received and is sure to glean some more as more are announced.
Eastern Promises is a great film which will stand with that film in the pantheon of great crime dramas.
