The performances are all uniformly excellent.
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David Cronenberg possesses one of the most unique filmographies of any director. The majority of movie-goers are probably most familiar with Cronenberg´s remake of "The Fly" starring Jeff Goldblum or his adaptation of Stephen King´s "The Dead Zone" with Christopher Walken. A lot of folks probably haven´t seen some of his more off-the-wall films like "The Brood" or "Naked Lunch", his adaptation of William S. Burroughs´ novel thought to be unfilmable. The Canadian filmmaker has spent much of his career dealing with the effects of technology on the human body and blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. All the while, Cronenberg adds in his own flair for the grotesque. The exploding head in "Scanners" has been referenced and parodied often while the image of James Woods pulling out his mutated gun hand from a vaginal opening in his stomach makes "Videodrome" an unforgettable film. Cronenberg´s most recent work can easily be considered his most mainstream and accessible. His last film, "A History of Violence", was adapted from a graphic novel and was his most critically-acclaimed film, receiving multiple accolades during awards season. Cronenberg returns with "Eastern Promises", a straightforward, yet compelling, crime thriller.
"Eastern Promises" tackles the Russian mob and their presence in London. We know exactly the kind of world we are about to enter when the film begins with a man getting his throat slit in a barber shop. From there, a young girl, only fourteen years of age and pregnant, stumbling into a pharmacy and hemorrhaging blood. She´s brought to a hospital and dies giving birth to a girl. Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts) is the mid-wife who assists in the procedure. Anna´s late father was a Russian immigrant, but she only has a passing knowledge of that world. Anna has recently moved back in with her mother Helen (Sinead Cusack) following a failed relationship and miscarriage. Perhaps, this is why Anna has taken the girl´s plight so personally and vows to the deliver the baby to the girl´s family. Anna´s only clues to her identity are a diary, written in Russian, and a business card for the Trans-Siberian Restaurant. Initially, Anna gives the diary to her Uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski) to translate it, but he only needs to read brief passages to know enough to not get involved.
Despite his warnings, Anna continues her investigation at the Trans-Siberian and meets Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a seemingly kindly old man. What Anna doesn´t realize, at first, is that Semyon is the head of a Russian crime family. She also runs into Semyon´s son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), a drunkard and a loudmouth, and the family´s driver, Nikolai Luzhin (Viggo Mortensen). Nikolai is treated like a brother by Kirill and counts babysitting him and cleaning up his messes among his duties. Nikolai is still making his bones and hopes to move up the ranks. In Italian mafia terms, he´s yet to be a "made man." Semyon shows a rather frightening fascination with the diary and Anna soon finds herself in a world of prostitution, drugs, and human trafficking.
"Eastern Promises" comes from a script by Steve Knight who also wrote the similarly minded, "Dirty Pretty Things." While Scorsese and "The Sopranos" have given us a wealth of depictions of the Italian Mafia, the traditions and codes of the Russian mob haven´t been explored as frequently. Gangsters have their bodies decorated in tattoos that act as biographical pictograms. The tattoos tell you where they´re from, what crimes they´ve committed and what prisons they´ve been in. You aren´t trusted until you have tattoos. The most prized are stars placed on the shoulder (for the mob to be close to your heart) and on the knees (so that you will never kneel). In one scene, Nikolai is grilled by Semyon and other bosses. When one boss insults Nikolai´s parents, Nikolai simply and calmly agrees. He has no other family, only his fellow vor v zakone, "thieves in law." The nationalities and rules may be different, but the film doesn´t exactly turn the gangster genre on its ear. "Promises" has some twists and turns, but it still manages to telegraph a few of its important points. I won´t spoil things too deeply, but you can tell Nikolai isn´t that bad a guy and that a happy ending is just around the corner.
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