Eastern Promises
Thursday, 25 Oct 2007 17:00
Viggo Mortensen is the best thing about Eastern Promises
Directed by David Cronenberg, out October 26th in cinemas, starring Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel, Naomi Watts, running time 100 minutes .
In a nutshell…
Violent Russian underbelly of London
What's it all about?
The film starts off as it means to go on with an all-too visual depiction of the birth of the baby about which this sordid tale is based. Tatiana, a young girl who we later learn has been raped and forced to inject heroin after arriving in London from the Ukraine in search of the ubiquitous better life, gives birth to a daughter but doesn't live to see her face. Watts' midwife, Anna, becomes consumed with the task of finding the newborn's family and that quest sets her on a collision course with one of London's most vicious Russian clans.
When we meet Nikolai (Mortensen) there is little doubt about the coldness of his heart and coolness of his character. He is busy using a hairdryer to thaw out a dead body so he can chop off its fingers and prevent identification. He does it with a nonchalant manner we become quite accustomed to and already the strength of his relationship with Kirill (Cassel), the son of the aforementioned clan's oligarch, is apparent, despite his supposed inferior chauffeur status.
The next 90-odd minutes can be summed as thus; bad guy reveals good side; nice girl falls for bad guy; lots of other guys get killed. It's pretty much Cronenberg doing what he does best.
Who's in it?
Mortensen appears tailor-made for this role. If the film's director is to be believed then the Lord of the Rings star prepared with the utmost dedication. He travelled to Russia and immersed himself in the culture and the language. According to Watts he almost became Nikolai while on set and it shows. We all know Mortensen can do fight scenes and he proves this without a shadow of a doubt in the soon-to-be-notorious naked sauna grappling session. Unperturbed by the fact his manhood is on show to all and sundry he ensures two Chechen thugs sent to kill him fail in their task. He is quite simply the best thing in this movie.
Watts does her best as the mild-mannered midwife enticed by the memories of her eastern past almost as much as she is by Nikolai's brawn. She plays her part well but is limited by a script that doesn't allow the audience to properly discover who she is and what she wants from Nikolai. Cassel breaks no barriers with his characterisation of the mentally unstable, and seemingly sexually repressed, heir to the criminal throne, while Arthur Mueller-Stahl's Semyon is purely functional.
As an example…
Anna: Why are you doing this, why are you helping us?
Nikolai: I can't become king if someone else already sits on the throne.
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars
Cronenberg has always been there or thereabouts when it comes to awards, having seen A History of Violence nominated for two Oscars and almost got his hands on the Golden Palm at the 2005 Cannes film festival for his first flirtation with the vaguely mainstream. Eastern Promises is wonderfully shot and sees a stand-out performance from Mortensen, but whether it will set the critics' pulses racing enough for him to pick up any of the major awards is not so certain.
What the others say
"Coming on the heels of one of the best films of Cronenberg's career, Eastern Promises winds up being a disappointment. Where A History… was a comic-book adaptation with unexpected depth, this takes a painful issue and gives it a pulpy implausibility. Mortensen shines but a contrived, issue-driven plot destabilises what could have been a great Russian gangster movie." - Empire
"In Eastern Promises, shot to envelop by the great Peter Suschitzky, Cronenberg brings us face to face with the horror of self. The film’s bristling invention and biting with can’t stave off the dread. Sure, it's hard to take. Consolation isn’t Cronenberg’s business. But art as a response to the terrors of modern life should be yours." – Rolling Stone
So is it any good?
Eastern Promises hits hard. Cronenberg, as ever, pulls no punches when it comes to depicting the violence in London's underworld. Gouging out a man's eye; raping a girl from behind; slitting a throat with a barber's knife, these are all portrayed with barely a flinch. It's not easy to watch but undeniably powerful. Gratuitous? Possibly, but there is nothing included merely for the sake of it and it's all necessary for the story to fly.
The production too oozes class, with London's familiar streets given a sinister and evocative feel knowing what we do about those who walk them in the film. Steve Wright – he of Dirty Pretty Things fame – has put together a script which matches the setting in tone and menace, but too many of the characters are left as empty as most of the consciences on display. Watts' seems particularly underdeveloped. The solitary snatched kiss Anna shares with Nikolai at the culmination of the film is not enough to explain her actions until that point.
Where Eastern Promises succeeds is in its gripping expose of the reality of life of an eastern European immigrant in one of the world's most affluent cities. Behind respectable frontages lie dens of callous violence where lives are destroyed on a whim. Where it is less successful is in making us empathise with those it tells the story of. Nikolai aside there are more questions than answers about the characters by the end of the 100 minutes. Perhaps that is the way Cronenberg intended, but the impact would surely have been greater had he ensured our attention was held by more than just the next act of brutality.
6.5/10
Martin Ashplant
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