Eastern Promises

In an interview with Toronto’s Eye Weekly, Canadian-born director David Cronenberg explains why he could care less for a crime story just as itself. “I was watching Miami Vice last night, and I realize that I’m not interested in the mechanics of the mob, but criminality and people who live in a state of perpetual transgression -- that is interesting to me.”

His new thriller, Eastern Promises, does not go into detail on how the Russian Mafia does its business, or how a London midwife hospital worker named Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts) uses the diary of the dead 14 year-old girl to find the baby’s relatives. Cronenberg, instead shows us why members of the Vory V Zakone syndicate such as Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) could continue to be apart of this crime ring, or why would a nurse risk her life to save the child of a baby, she does not know about?

The young girl’s diary leads Anna into the heart of the Russian Mafia, and to its crime boss, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) who runs a popular restaurant in London, his degenerate, drunken son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and the loyal, yet violent driver, Nikolai. Now what does the young girl’s diary and her baby have to do with the violent criminal underworld of the Russian Mob? I'll never tell, and don't you dare let anyone else squeal.

Many directors today can film a bloody, violent scene, and it becomes the watercooler topic for a few days with friends. Cronenberg dosen't take that route. He instead makes it quick and uncomfortable to sit through, such as the case when we watch the young girl expel her bloody fetus from her uterus at the London hospital. The scene itself leaves a etch into your memory that you wont be able to shake for days.

The acting in Eastern Promises is first rate. Naomi Watts is extraordinary. Vincent Cassel digs deep to show us the vile nature of Kirill, and a glimpse of his nagging conscious towards the end of the film. As the leader of the Vory V Zakone crime family, Semyon, Armin Mueller-Stahl gives a performance that should put him on the front list for Best Supporting Actor come Oscar time. However, it is Viggo Mortensen who gives the knockout performance this year as Nikolai, a man who has been to hell, and has the tattoos all over his body to tell us where he has been. The scene with Mortensen naked, fighting off two knife-wielding thugs in a bathhouse is something that will be talked about, and more-than-likely manipulated, for years to come. Eastern Promises is not just one of-if not-the best film of 2007, it is a film that grabs you and doesn't let go. Don’t miss it.
**** stars out of ****