By REVIEW BY KEN TARR NEWRELEASES
David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises” doesn’t fool around. While other Mafia-centric films delve far too deep into introducing quirky mob thugs and a dichotomy of kingpins and kingpin rivals, this film scrapes away all the peripheral pomp and circumstance and leaves the viewer with a raw and compelling story.
“Promises” assumes the viewer knows that the kingpin wields unseen power, that the quiet chauffeur has more of a story to tell and that what is on the surface is not actually there. Currently in general release, many viewers may be repulsed by the graphic violence and eerie look of the film, but I suspect the commanding, attention-demanding performance of Viggo Mortensen will make viewers recommend it because the film is so unconventional, so dark and so visually compelling.
For my money, it’s the best film since 2006’s “Children of Men.” Cronenberg, whose last film “A History of Violence” also starred Mortensen, has himself a very serious awards contender here, at least for directing. Some of the visual compositions in this film are as powerful as a tumbler of Russian vodka.
For years a role player in films both good and bad, Mortensen has now become the most compelling actor in Hollywood. His roles in “Violence” and this film are similar in that he is playing a man with a secret past. French actor Matthew Cassel, a versatile actor with a very nice body of work, starting with 1995’s “La Haine,” takes a one-note character — Kirill, the spoiled son of the Russian crime boss — and goes many interesting places in his shoes, from homo-eroticism to jealousy and back to sexual perversion and unworthiness.
The well-choreographed violence of this film is a major selling point. The bath house death-match is completely riveting and Mortensen does bare all, but he more or less does that in every scene of the film anyway. Without a single gun, the violence in “Promises” seems timeless and more meaningful than a Western or a simple mob movie.
Naomi Watts co-stars as Anna, the hospital midwife who uncovers some dark “Vor V Zakone” (Russian for Thief’s Code — the term for their elite gangsters) secrets. Watts is serviceable, but not all that believable as a Russian Briton either.
“Eastern Promises” is a fast-moving, violent Mafia thriller that is entirely original and should be remembered come awards season.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 28, 2007. Read the original PDF.