Eastern Promises (2007)

Written by Stephen Knight
Directed by David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg seems to just get better with each of his movies as he goes along. Here, he focuses on the Russian Mafiya underworld that has taken hold of London and how a family of criminals comes into contact with a midwife who has Russian relatives. In Roger Ebert's review, he explicitly states that Cronenberg begged him not to reveal any plot information, and after watching the movie, I tend to agree with that. So all I will say is that Kirill (Vincent Cassell) and his father Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) run a successful criminal enterprise in London, and Kirill's new driver and bodyguard Nikolai (Viggo Mortenson) is an enigmatic and curious man. All of their affairs come to a head when a young midwife at a London hospital named Anna (Naomi Watts) comes into posession of a diary, and cares for an orphaned baby that is somehow connected to the family.

From here, this is a modern gangster drama, without the typical gangster elements. There are no guns in this movie, for they create less of a personal statement in their violence. The knives and razors used here create an intimate, claustrophobic sense of violence, where the characters are prone to be killed by the people closest to them, emotionally and physically. This is not a spoiler mind you, but merely an observation on the nature of the film.

Vincent Cassel puts on a great performance as a bratty, spoiled mobster whose own intelligence is far outweighed by his family name and reputation as a madman. His father, played by Armin Mueller-Stahl, is great as the patriarch of an important mob family, and plays the final piece to a lot of the film's puzzle in an expert manner. I can definitely see the praise for Viggo Mortenson's acting in this film, it's one of the first times I've seen him get deliberately into a role, where he sunk in, and really became someone else. He plays a creepy, steadfast, quiet gangster, but at the same time, he says more without saying anything at all, which has never been his style. It's usually very straightforward and plain, but with this move towards seriousness, I can see a Best Actor statue in his future, as long as the roles keep coming.

David Cronenberg has conducted a slow, methodical symphony of Russian criminals in a world where they don't belong. Their heritage is the only thing they share, the ideas of loyalty and trust they each hold are told so quietly and deftly through camera movement, the weather, and the general atmosphere of each scene that the film invokes a Russian style Godfather feeling. I'm not putting this on the same level of the Godfather, but at the same time, the quiet, metaphoric style of Coppola's classic is often resonated through the intelligent characters, gruesome decisions, and hellacious backstabbings throughout the film. This is by far Cronenberg's most mature and well thought out film, I can't wait to see what he turns in next.

9.0/10