I was going to see this last week but that was only the limited release. This week was the wide release so I had the opportunity to check this out this weekend. It's new David Cronenberg so basically a must-see in my book.

There's a lot going on in Eastern Promises but I'll stick to the most central plot. Anna (Naomi Watts), a midwife at a hospital in London, delivers a child from a fourteen year old Russian girl who dies in child birth. In an effort to find out more about the mysterious circumstances in which she perished, Anna steals the girls' diary. Unfortunately, it's completely in Russian. When her Russian father doesn't get around to translating the diary in time to satisfy Anna's curiosity, she goes to the manager of a restaurant for information about the girl. He says he knows nothing but quickly becomes interested at the mention of the diary, which he agrees to translate. Unknown to Anna, however, is the fact that the manager is the boss of a Russian mafia syndicate and that the diary is full of secrets linking the girl's death to them.

Although Anna is the character most relateable to the audience, the star of Eastern Promises is Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), the boss's driver who reports to both him and the boss's son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel). Kirill and his father have a considerably conflicting relationship. Kirill is a loud, obnoxious drunk who does things his own way with or without his father's approval. Considering Nikolai is basically at the bottom of the mafia food chain, he has to do what both of them say, which also makes his alliegances conflicted. They become even more so conflicted when Anna comes into the picture.

Eastern Promises is probably Cronenberg's most normal film, even compared to A History of Violence. It's not quite a gangster movie so much as a movie about gangsters. It's much more of a straightforward drama about Nikolai's conflict of interests. It's definitely a new look at the gangster genre as well as the gangster character but still, for Cronenberg, this is quite down to earth. There isn't even that much violence in the film. Really, only three scenes of actual violence and several more involving corpses and such. A particular scene in a steam room, however, is particularly brutal. In fact, even more brutal than a handful of horror movies that came out this year, even if it's not as gory. Still, Eastern Promises is a very laid back film but I think it works. It's much more about emotions than about violence and brutality, which I think makes it a much deeper and powerful film. Besides, Cronenberg's got enough blood and guts in his catalog to last him the rest of his career.

The highlights of the film are probably the performances. Viggo Mortensen is the star but his role is not exactly one starts take on. He's not the boss, he's the one who takes orders. He can be very dangerous when he wants to be but for the most part, is personality is passive. Mortensen's portrayal of the character is very laid back but varied and complex. He's interesting to watch. Watts' performance is a little flat but her character is round and well developed. Her motives are easy to identify with. Vincent Cassel is probably the most in-your-face character in the film. He's pretty off-the-wall, unpredictable, and a little sinister but I think there's still something likeable about him. He's not the stereotypical cowboy psycopath character (ala Tommy in Goodfellas) you'd expect from a gangster movie. He's different but there's still a lot to him.

Anyway, not exactly what I expected but I thought Eastern Promises was a solid flick. Genre fans'll probably be disappointed by the lack of action but Cronenberg fans should enjoy his change in direction. I'd say his closest film to this style would be A History of Violence but they're both very different. Anyone who likes a good drama or thriller should enjoy this as well.

Overall, worth the price of admission. You shouldn't have to wait for this one to come out on DVD. I think it's worth checking out while it's still in theaters.

This was one helluva movie. I loved absolutely everything about it. The direction was amazing, the pacing was perfect, the performances were simply outstanding. Mortensen deserves an Oscar nomination for his work as Nikolai the driver. With this and the recent A History of Violence, David Cronenberg has proven that he is still one of the most interesting directors working today. This is one of the year's very best movies. I highly recommend it (although it is not for everyone, there are some incredibly graphic throat-slitting scenes and a naked fight that had me cringing). Check it out as soon as you can.


Matt.

I thought it was okay - it didn't do a hell of a lot for me. The story was good and all I just thought it took a little too long to build.

I liked the film up until the guy steals the baby. Once he steals the baby it lets go and rushes into the ending.

The undercover agent part is throwaway. Putting the boss in jail is throwaway. The kidnapping is throwaway. The romance is throwaway.

It's a decent flick but the last 30 minutes give or take rip the film apart and send it back to amateur screenwriting in my opinion of course.

The shower fight is a great fight. It's almost too good for this movie.

Wesley's review hit close to the nail I think, Cronenberg as talented as the man clearly is has tried to cram far too much into this movie. Vigo did not need to be and undercover cop, the only purpose that so called "sub-plot" exists is to allow the uncle to live and make Vigo seem like a nice guy, it was not developed nearly enough. And the same goes for other strands to this movie.

But it was still IMHO one of the best movies of last year for one simple reason, whatever the flaws of the piece the director tried to make a great movie. And honestly I love movies, i really do and the intentions of the people responsible for making movies play a big part in whether i like the movie or not. i.e. I can excuse a piss poor film if it was made for $20 and a packet of crisps by a director who just wants to make great movies as compared to an OK movie made by Michael Bay with a $200m budget. So I think this movie deserves credit for wanting to be brilliant. In the end it was very good - which ain't half bad in a year that despite a really bad start actually turned out to be a half decent year for movies.

It's a good film, but I do feel it's kinda over-rated. We never got into Anna's head, so it feels very rushed when she suddenly starts to play detective about what happened to the young mother of the baby. This can't possibly be the first delivery that has ever gone wrong for her? I know she lost her own baby (which we aren't told until 45 minutes in or something), but why this baby?

Act II is great and that's the best part for me. Viggo Mortensen is awesome, and they might as well have called this movie "Viggo Mortensen's balls" 'cause we sure get a good look haha! Armin Mueller Stahl was great too.

The ending was so-so. Pretty decent but nothing spectacular.

I always enjoy Cronenberg's films, perhaps because they're always flawed. Many of them severely so, but there's also something to them. Even though he's done rather serious films as of late, Cronenberg has always wobbled between being art house director doing B-movies or a B-movie director doing art house films.

I'm almost too embarrassed to mention this, but I didn't get that it was situated in London until the guys were heading for that soccer match. I thought it was situated in Russia - imagine my surprise.

Don't ask.

Quoted from sniper I'm almost too embarrassed to mention this, but I didn't get that it was situated in London until the guys were heading for that soccer match. I thought it was situated in Russia - imagine my surprise. Don't ask.

Ah! So you thought when the Russian mobsters switched between speaking English and Russian it was just like old WWII movies were the German officers speak English and the footsoldiers German?

Quoted from Death Monkey Ah! So you thought when the Russian mobsters switched between speaking English and Russian it was just like old WWII movies were the German officers speak English and the footsoldiers German?

Well...yeah.

I wonder why they did that for Schindler's list though? It's a conceit with a kinda cheesy history.

Hopefully, our children's children will live in a world where people can endure subtitles...

The movie on DVD is an hour and forty one minutes. By today's standards add 10 more minutes mixed in of little moments and it would have made a world of difference.

Sure, you can watch it and forget little flaws but some of those are too big for someone who is supposed to be "great"

The character of Anna really hurts the film because why would a nurse go after something like this to a point where her family is in danger. I don't know any doctors/nurses to ask but would they do this in reality? It seems like more of a lame plot device like in horror films where they go into the scary house when they shouldn't.

I enjoyed the movie but to overlook those problems and even consider "awards" is a slap in the face to everyone else who writes a complete story.

Of course it also shows a lack of depth in the films of this past year.

Quoted from sniper I'm almost too embarrassed to mention this, but I didn't get that it was situated in London until the guys were heading for that soccer match. I thought it was situated in Russia - imagine my surprise. Don't ask.

It wasnt just you. Took me a while to realize it wasn't Russian or the Urkrane, whatever. For me this was highly overrated. I like Cronenberg's slow burn style, but the story seemed too slight and oddly constructed; taking a hell of a long time to build, then rushing to a mild, not very involving ending - and tossing in the twist **SPOLIER** of Viggo's character being an undercover cop.   It seemed to include most cliches we expect from "gangster" movies, but didn't offer much that was fresh. I haven't read the script or looked at any of the DVD features, but the movie felt whittled down, hollowed out. Just don't get the wild praise for this one.