Eastern Promises

"He is no driver, He's the Undertaker."

Eastern Promises was one of those films that really had nothing spectacular to it, it is just ordinary people under ordinary circumstances, but that is what gives the film its genuineness. Director David Cronenberg (The Fly, A History of Violence), doesn't take to the hotspots of London like most filmmakers shooting there would, but rather opts for the subtle places, the places where characters can fully develop. The grunge, the damp, the underground world of the Russian mob.

The story follows Anna (played by Naomi Watts), who is a nurse that is greeted one night to pregnant mother dying on the operating table. The child survives and the only information that Anna can go by is a book written in Russian, that Anna needs help translating. On the other side of the law is Nikolai (played by Academy Awards nominee - Viggo Mortenson). Who is trying to climb the ladder of the Russian mob. When Anna asks a man to translate it (Semyon, who is in fact also in the Russian mob), he discovers that the information in the book can be incriminating against him, thus he seeks to destroy the book.

Overall the movie doesn't have alot of action in it (okay there is that sauna/bath house fight sequence, and the part where Nikolai goes "Sweeney Todd" on another guy) but mostly the film dwells on the web of back-stabbing between, Nikolai, Semyon, and Semyon's son Kirill. The structure for the story also follows a weird format, there really is no third act. The main character is never faced with a decision, but rather the decision is made for them.

Is this Cronenberg's best film? Most would tell you "no". But in all of his films the viewer is set in a world that has the basis of reality. The way Cronenberg tells his stories is never boring, but in some way you have to ask yourself "What is Cronenberg trying to tells us by this film?"




*******
7 out of 10 stars