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Eastern Promises (2007)

Time Out rating

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18 reviews

Synopsis

David Cronenberg re-teams with his ‘History of Violence’ star Viggo Mortensen for this London-set tale of the Russian Mafia, revolving around the sex trade. Extensive location shooting has included Hackney’s Broadway Market and the old Middlesex Hospital.

Movie review

From Time Out London

Just as the shivering ghost of Coppola’s ‘Godfather’ hovers over the gruesome opening barbershop murder in Cronenberg’s impressive, if flawed, London-set mafia thriller, so can you can detect the influence of Paul Schrader in the samurai-ethics of its novitiate hero, Nikolai (an outstanding Viggo Mortensen), a lowly chauffeur with useful taxidermy skills, whose formidable forbearance, shaded tact and steely-strength mark him out as a man of yet-unfulfilled ambitions. Good influences on a great director, undoubtedly; but as Cronenberg’s thoughtful, atmospheric, meticulously-directed and slyly analytical film progresses – and as Nik becomes torn between his feelings for feisty midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) and duty to deceptively-bonhomous boss Semyon (Armin Muller-Stahl) whom she enlists to translate the diary of a dead Russian prostitute – it’s magpie intelligence make your body ache for shots of pure Cronenberg.

When they come – and they do, not least in the sordid symphony of slips, steel, blood and bare-flesh Cronenberg choreographs as the now-promoted ‘vory’ does gut-wrenchingly realistic battle with Chechen rivals on the wet tiles of Finsbury baths – it’s a pleasurable shock. It’s fascinating to watch Cronenberg apply his uniquely transgressive, dualist gaze to the Thameside alleys, velveteen private clubs and the psychological battles and shady internecine struggles of old and new Londoners. But his is a morally-complex vision seemingly at odds with that of the script provided by Steve ‘Dirty Pretty Things’ Knight, whose penchant for mechanistic and self-cancelling moral correspondences and ambiguities provides a birth for every death, for every racial, social or moral presumption, a clever qualification, reversal or inversion. The marriage of the two minds – the one fissive, the other more domesticated and pc – has produced a slightly hesitant, slightly undercharacterised and gently compromising, hybrid: an oddly diplomatic, if often brutal, dip into the hellish demi-mondes lurking behind bouncer-guarded London doorways, which while lacking either the immersive compulsion of his first ‘London’ film ‘Spider’ or the clarity and graphic power of his similarly-themed ‘A History of Violence’, offers something quite new and intriguing from Cronenberg, an ironic but undeniably romantic comment on the uncertain return on moral capital, an achievement that would have been inconceivable without Mortensen’s extraordinary central performance.

Author: Wally Hammond

Time Out London Issue 1940: October 23-29 2007

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User reviews of this film

Technoguy said...

Posted on Mar 06 2008 21:02 This film by Cronenburg is a hybrid.It doesn’t do what it says on the tin,what it tries to do is more interesting but it doesn’t quite come off.Steven Knight has covered the London of immigrants before in what I thought was a more succesful film,’Dirty Pretty Things’.He writes a moral story that is more plot-driven. However Cronenburg
rightly slips in his own preoccupations and images, which are in his usual areas: physicality, identity, corruption and transgression.He adumbrates a closed world, a sealed society. It’s strange how he makes this London a pupa hatched in it’s own devious juices, an exotic cocoon which he manifests for our gaze. I preferred his two previous films,The History of Violence and Spider(especially it’s version of London). This is an 18 credited film and rightly so.In the 1st scenes a young prostitute dies giving birth and a man’s throat is graphically cut. There is a naked fight sequence in a bath house that is amazing, tense, eruptive and shocking .Vigo Mortensen gives a truly superb Russian mafia soul a tortured, tattoed embodiment. His accent and ungrammatical enunciation word-perfect. Naomi Watts although good as a sweet-natured nurse somehow doesn’t fit into the picture, she wouldn’t be able to come anywhere near these kind of people.Yet she’s used as the wedge that splits up the family. Vincent Cassell is far to OTT as Krill, the Russian mobsters son. The ending is too pat and incomplete as if the author had lost invention or the Director had run short of funding. However the film is far better than British gangster films or even American mafia films in that it tries to get inside transgressive criminality in transition.Intriguing without being overwhelming.

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Todd said...

Posted on Nov 23 2007 13:06 An absolutely beautiful film even though the violence was harsh at moments it cowers in the brillance of an epic film. any one who slates it should grow a heart

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annette said...

Posted on Nov 17 2007 10:35 What a great film! Mortensen is wonderful, tough yet with a certain vulnerability that makes the twist towards the end very believable.Brutal at times, this film engaged me throughout although the last two minutes were disappointing.Go see and enjoy!

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Clou said...

Posted on Nov 08 2007 13:32 Really enjoyed this film and loved the twist, although it was quite predictable from the beginning and wasn't pleased with the ending. Yeah she was happy, but did she end up with him? Did the old man go down? What happened to Kirril in the end???- assuming that Nikolai took the old mans place. Very good film, very gorey and there was one part that scared me and turned my stomach at the same time!!! Worth watching

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critique said...

Posted on Nov 07 2007 11:25 Engaging until the "twist" in the plot then loses its way. Mortensen is powerful and magnetic.

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KingChumley said...

Posted on Nov 06 2007 18:08 The fight scenes in this film were very good, however the film itself lacked a certain something. It seemed to be short on the depth of plot, and when the film ended, in my opinion quite abruptly, I was left feeling robbed. I couldn't believe the filmmakers didn't continue the storly line when good old Viggo sweeps into power. Maybe it is crying out for a sequel. Maybe they couldn't be bothered. Maybe I was robbed? who knows.

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Rachael said...

Posted on Nov 06 2007 14:03 Viggo was outstanding, his character was interesting, but theres not much more to this film. For some reason it feels like its lacking something, but I couldnt put my finger on what.
the violence is a bit upsetting in parts - the whole cinema let out a gasp at one particularly nasty bit whcih Im sure anyone who has seen the fight acene in the baths could identify.

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Jazmine Haigh said...

Posted on Nov 05 2007 14:56 amazing film, dark disturbing. cinematic creation at its best. Must be seen at all cost for fans of the dirty mobster films.

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Sutton said...

Posted on Nov 05 2007 14:01 Quite an enjoyable film, though very violent and not for those with a weak stomach. The leads were all well acted, though the accents varied and a few cliches on the mafia genre were indulged in. Worth seeing at the cinema, as opposed to dvd... but don't eat a big meal beforehand!!

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Paul C said...

Posted on Nov 04 2007 19:17 Very enjoyable film, an 18 cert, so adults only should go Dave L! A great London film free of the usual backdrops, The scene in the baths is fantastic had the cinema on the edge of its seat. A must see film if you liked the last Bond and Bourne.

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Dave L said...

Posted on Nov 03 2007 20:46 Utterley disgusting film - totally gratuitous violence - the amount I could stomach was about 30 minutes.

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Dave said...

Posted on Nov 02 2007 12:03 Can anyone tell me what the heck the reviewer is talking about ?
Was it a good film or not...?
;-)

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John Kavanagh said...

Posted on Oct 29 2007 15:39 I was dissapointed - some of the minor characters felt characiatured and under developed, while significant characters like Anna and Kirril were unconvincing in their depiction. At times the cinematography and script felt comic like in its overripeness of colour and simplicity of plot development. I found myself searching for a reason for this approach out of respect for a great director but I could find none - unlike in A History of Violence where the debunking of the American dream and the denunciation of the gun laws added weight to a deceptivley simple film. There are great moments and Vigo Mortensen puts in another faultless performance but someone please tell me what is Cronenberg saying with this - because otherwise I can only see it as an overstyalised update of the best 60s UK gangster movies

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joe said...

Posted on Oct 29 2007 11:27 This is a great film and intelligently done.

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Christopher Levett said...

Posted on Oct 27 2007 23:51 It felt somehow too English - convenient resolutions conspiring to smooth over what ought to have been complex developments. But there were some lovely bits of visceral Cronenberg: the Finsbury baths scene and the way he deals with the baby taking her first breaths, Mortensen is good - the whole film hangs on him - but the ambiguity of his character just isn't ambiguous enough, and the image of Anna and Nicolai on her old motorcycle dashing through the London night seemed rooted in more innocent times.

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