Eastern PromisesThe provocative David Cronenberg has clearly not moved beyond his own history of violence: Eastern Promises has not one but two gory throat-slittings, the onscreen removal of a dead man’s fingers – and a stunningly choreographed fight scene in a bathhouse in which a naked Viggo Mortensen battles two fully clothed thugs with knives, and no one comes out unscathed. Mortensen can take on a couple of armed guys because he’s a Russian mob chauffeur in London with a sideline in fixing problems, if you catch our drift. And his boss has a doozy of a problem when a junkie prostitute dies in childbirth, leaving behind a diary full of incriminating info. That book falls into the hands of Anna (Naomi Watts), who can’t read Russian but knows enough to distrust the Russian mob. 

Eastern alternates between shocking violence and long stretches of slowly building menace. Mortensen, who was such a convincing regular guy in History of Violence, plays in a broader register here. As father-and son mobsters, Armin Meller-Stahl and Vincent Cassel also paint their characters in familiar strokes (scary but avuncular mob boss, drunken son anxious to fill daddy’s shoes), but in the bright, slightly surreal world Cronenberg creates, it all makes sense. Watts is less at ease, perhaps because Cronenberg and screenwriter Steve Knight (Dirty Pretty Things) are obviously more interested in how men interact with each other, whether they’ve got knives in their hands or in their words. 
Hank Sartin 
In stores now (DVD $29.90, VCD $19.90) 

Dan in Real Life 
We’ve seen Steve Carell do goofy-romantic (The 40-Year-Old Virgin), but can he handle a role that’s simply romantic? Dan in Real Life aims to convince viewers that the comedian’s amiable doofus persona earmarks him to be the next Tom Hanks (something preferable to, God help us, the next Jim Carrey). A nice-guy widower who pens an advice column, Dan (Carell) connects with a woman (Juliette Binoche) in a bookstore. Later, during the annual extended family vacation, he’s introduced to the new girlfriend of his douche-bag brother (Dane Cook). Guess who she is? 

Carell can play likeably lovestruck as well as anyone, and Binoche provides the perfect counterpoint for his awkward fumblings; both are helped immensely by director Peter Hedges (Pieces of April), who knows how to keep things organically charming without being overly cloying. The problem is that someone at the studio obviously wanted to play it safe, which is why chunks of the film are reserved for the actor to do dependably Carellesque shtick for the masses: here’s a bit of uncomfortable babbling, there’s a touch of rubber-limb flailing. Somewhere in between the forced movie-star moments is a smaller, sweeter picture trying to get out. We wish the suits had given that second film more breathing room.
DF 
In stores now (DVD $29.90, VCD $19.90)