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EASTERN PROMISES |
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By : Suzanne Philips |
Movie Reviews List | |
EASTERN PROMISES - Opens wide September 21, 2007 Written by: Steven Knight (DIRTY PRETTY THINGS) Directed by: David Cronenberg Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl Rated R Running Time: 1 hour 40 minutes David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen have teamed up again in EASTERN PROMISES and the results are impressive. A pregnant 14-year old girl is rushed to a London hospital where she dies. The doctors are successful in saving the baby, a little girl. The midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) finds a diary among the girls property, along with a business card for a local Russian restaurant, Trans-Siberia. Anna goes to the restaurant and asks the owner, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) to translate the diary in an effort to find any relatives that might be able to take the girl's baby. Semyon, who is actually the head of the Russian mob in London and his son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) are anxious to cover up the girls death. Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), who is the mob's fix-it guy, is told to make the problem disappear. Nikolai finds that his loyalties are divided as he is torn between his loyalty to the mob and his affection for Anna. EASTERN PROMISES is a truly outstanding film. There is really very little about this film that I did not like. The story by Steven Knight is both realistic and engaging. The characters are well-rounded and the plot is very believable. What I really liked is that each character seems very human. While Nikolai, Kirill and Semyon are truly bad people who do bad things, the audience also gets to see them as family men and ordinary guys who do everyday tasks like throwing birthday parties and teaching their grandkids how to play the violin. This is juxtaposed with the excessive violence of their chosen professions. One minute they can be cooking a meal, and the next they are ordering executions or disposing of bodies. All of this is the norm in their world. With the introduction of Anna, an English midwife who, despite having a Russian father, has very little knowledge of their world, Knight is able to establish a huge conflict in the story. Until her arrival, the characters are set in their ways and operate in their own world that they control. Anna turns that world upside down and makes them re-asses their priorities and makes them find out just how far they can and will go to maintain their way of life. Cronenberg has done a fabulous job with the direction here. The locations chosen for the film are rich in color and texture and show the old and the new colliding in London, much as the characters in the film collide. He lets the actors explore their characters and create people who are very believable and at some point, you can truly identify with each one of them. He has also assembled an amazing cast who truly breathe life into this piece. Naomi Watts does a great turn as Anna and I liked the fact that she played her as a woman who is not terribly concerned with her appearance or what others think of her. Vincent Cassel plays a whiny son of a powerful man with conviction, but manages to give Kirill an extra layer of depth that isn't on the page. Armin Mueller-Stahl is truly scary and manages to convey that while looking and acting like a grandfather. Viggo Mortensen is outstanding as Nikolai . Viggo has proven himself time and time again to be a really great actor but I believe he has outdone himself here. Nikolai is by turns ruthless, violent, funny, vulnerable and caring. His performance alone would be worth the price of admission. He truly carries the film. I know that there has been a lot of hype about his nude scene in the bathhouse in the press and online. The scene is truly amazing, not because of the nudity so much (although that is amazing) but because of the way that Mortensen and Cronenberg have set the scene with so much violence and terror that the audience almost forgets that Nikolai is naked. Almost. There is some graphic violence in the film, which Cronenberg has given more of an impact to by the fact that the violence is usually sudden and even though you know it is coming, you still get a jolt when it does take place. It serves to keep the viewer on edge for a good deal of the film. I think EASTERN PROMISES is an even better film than A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE in many ways. It's not overly long, the story is fresh and entertaining and the acting is totally on point. For many reasons, I wouldn't suggest taking children to the film, but I think that this is one of the first truly great films of this year. 4 3/4 out of 5 |
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