Eastern Promises (18)

CONTAINS SLIGHT SPOILER: I agree with the TO review in that it would be inconceivable without Mortensen`s extraordinary central performance.Watts and Mueller-stahl are good but Cassel,whom i sometimes like,is poor,i hadn`t the slightest belief in the softening of his character in the films ending(what was Cronenberg thinking!).Overall watchable but not much here without Mortensen(a 5 star performance in a 2&1/2 star film).I much prefered Cronenberg`s Spider(my favourite of his films i`ve seen) and A History of Violence,as long as you bear in mind it`s based on a graphic novel & not to be taken entirely seriously.

something lacking here, in retrospect. still, bloody good viewing and vigo mortennsen is absolutely amazing. not yer best cronenberg but u shud still watch this one

For all its flaws I enjoyed this film. Yes the characters are one dimensional and it 's trying to be too Godfatherish but the juxtaposition of the ordinary family with the gangsters is well done. Particularly liked the locations

Excellent Film!! viggo mortensen is brilliant!

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.

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

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!

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

Engaging until the "twist" in the plot then loses its way. Mortensen is powerful and magnetic.

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.