Eastern Promises (Full Screen Edition)

𝑰 𝒂𝒎 𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓. 𝑰 𝒈𝒐 𝒍𝒆𝒇𝒕, 𝑰 𝒈𝒐 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕, 𝑰 𝒈𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒂𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅 - 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒊𝒕.Eastern Promises is a 2007 gangster film directed by David Cronenberg, from a screenplay written by Steven Knight. The film stars Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, Sinéad Cusack and Armin Mueller-Stahl.It tells a story of a Russian-British midwife, Anna (Watts), who delivers the baby of a drug-addicted 14-year old Russian prostitute who dies in childbirth. After Anna learns that the teen was forced into prostitution by the Russian Mafia in London, the leader of the Russian gangsters (Mueller-Stahl) threatens the baby, and Anna is warned off by a strong-arm man (Mortensen).If I’m being completely frank: I tend to not really like gangster or mob related movies. More specifically - I have a difficult time keeping up with them between the tendency for 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒔 and 𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒑𝒍𝒚 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒔 to drive and propel most of their ongoing conflict and subsequent resolutions.‘Eastern Promises’ is not without its own juicy slabs of confusion, but the most pertinent information is served in relatively straight forward proportions. Nonetheless: its tone and various hints of obscurity throughout work to imply that there is more to Knights’ characters and scenery than should be taken at face value, and there is always a feeling that significant choices and interactions take place outside of what is currently being shown on screen in this particular universe. When taken into consideration that most of ‘EP’s plot is influenced by the subject of sex trafficking and related sequentials - I would argue this is largely unavoidable.Knight ultimately succeeds in making a number of seemingly detached goals and motivations converge upon one another, but some of these ‘synapses’ appear generally coincidental and require some suspension from reality to flow without turbulence or inquisitive discontent. An example of such is a faux pa of sorts: a last ditch effort at inserting romance in a place where it honestly isn’t needed (nor does it add anything particularly substantial storywise), but it doesn’t overstay its welcome and isn’t frivolously distracting. Perhaps best of all: ‘Eastern Promises’ has a brag-worthy plot twist (that is predictable in hindsight) that simultaneously leaves the door wide open for a sequel that would be worth checking out (That doesn't exist 😢) while ending on a point that is satisfactory at best.As with Cronenberg’s predecessors - ‘Eastern Promises’ - depends on some level of brutality to serve as a reminder of what its characters are capable of when driven to the point of savagery (that is both meticulous and uncontrollable). At times gimmicky - but often shocking- ‘EP’ is not for the faint of heart or for those that are squeamishly inclined. Between slit throats and jabbed eyes: efforts made in mirroring an accurate portrayal of Vory v Zakone (yes, they are a real life gang) comes through with full force. But let’s not act surprised: Cronenberg has a history of violence after all.Mistaken for a member of Vory v Zakone while off set (#Truestory), the extent of Mortensen’s transformation beyond just physical appearances must not go unappreciated. Traveling alone to Moscow prior to filming (without a translator) and watching Russian television daily as a form of immersion: his Siberian accent and an unfazed demeanor that elevates his performance simmers with perfection. In distorting his charismatic shell while maintaining it throughout Nikolai becomes a Rubik cube of emotion: easily held, but not easily solved or found out.Intriguing to a point while avoiding exhaustion, to call ‘Eastern Promises’ a worthy contender in the gangster genre would be a gross understatement.I would recommend.

Being somewhat experienced in Russian culture (from an outsider looking in), I often cringe at the way Russians are depicted in movies...especially when it comes to bad accents and not really looking or acting like Russians. In "Eastern Promises," the actor with the worst accent actually gets killed first...probably for having one. But the rest of the main characters are largely excellent. Viggo Mortensen proves once again that he is a masterful actor, playing the complex role of a ruthless Russian torpedo who struggles at times to live up to his reputation after meeting a nurse played by Naomi Watts. Armin Mueller-Stahl, with his shockingly blue eyes, is also brilliant (if not more so) as the Russian mafia boss, whose subtle choice of words behind a fatherly persona is as menacing as it is fascinating to watch. The story is engrossing and tense with well-crafted characters throughout. Kudos to director David Cronenberg for making a gangster film that compares favorably with the masterworks of Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola. The only warning I have is that this movie is extremely violent...which will likely be off-putting to those who could barely tolerate the violence in "The Godfather" and "Goodfellas." Other than that, I highly recommend it. This one should be bumped up to classic.

Only thing to say is V. M acting role was good - also N. W. added female touch. First 1 minute started with very explicit throat cutting - which will set tone for whole movie. Absolute waste of money (should have gone to Dairy Queen for a Sunday split instead). Most all movie is silent as mute button worked overtime. Must have been a writer trying to out do Stephen King with gross violence for violence sake. Shame on Hollywood - is this the best they can do with all the good acting talent they have to put together a 2 hr story of redeeming value?. Best advice - don't even think about watching this one or buying it.

Eastern Promises comes in two parts. On the one hand, Naomi Watts finds the diary of a dead Russian woman which leads to nothing but trouble for her as its’ connected to a Russian mafia family. On the other hand, Viggo Mortensen is a rising soldier in that gang who has to deal with its problems including Watts. It mixes the violence of the mobsters with the human story of the dead woman. I’ve always liked Mortensen and he delivers again here. He’s quiet and calm yet can be menacing at the same time. He’s also involved in a bloody fight that will make you skirm. My only complaint is the abrupt ending. It’s still very good.

... Cronenberg im Jahre 2007 mit einer absoluten Starbesetzung in London direkt im Herzen des Machtgebietes der Vory V Zakone - der russischen Mafia - drehte.MIR persönlich wird er für lange Zeit im Gedächtnis bleiben, das ist ganz sicher. Denn die Hauptdarsteller sind mit Viggo Mortensen als Nikolaj, Naomi Watts als Anna, Vincent Cassel als Kirill und Armin Mueller-Stahl als Semjon perfekt besetzt. Aber auch die anderen Darsteller geben ihr Allerbestes. Es stimmt für mich einfach alles in diesem Thriller, der in meiner UK Originalausgabe ab 18 Jahren freigegeben ist. Und das völlig richtig so - für Zartbesaitete ist dieser Film absolut nicht geeignet. Es beginnt mit Blutvergießen und Brutalität und das durchzieht den ganzen Film. Einige ruhige Momente gibt es eigentlich nur, wenn Nikolaj und Anna aufeinandertreffen. Und das Ende ist fast versöhnlich zu nennen, auch wenn jemand einen zu? - hohen Preis für Recht und Ordnung zahlt...Die zentrale Figur ist der "Fahrer" Nikolaj, der im Auftrag des Bosses Semjon die Untaten seines psychotischen Sohnes Kirill auszubügeln hat. Kirill lässt morden, Nikolaj beseitigt das Opfer. Er ist als Kindermädchen von Kirill - Alkoholiker und drogensüchtig - eigentlich voll ausgelastet. Als eine minderjährige drogensüchtige Prostit*ierte im Krankenhaus bei der Geburt eines Mädchens stirbt, kümmert sich die Hebamme Anna - Tochter von Exilrussen - um das Baby. Sie versucht, anhand des Tagebuches der Toten Verwandte der Kleinen ausfindig zu machen. Ihr Onkel Stepan - Ex-KGB - soll ihr die Einträge übersetzen. Anna selbst folgt einer Visitenkarte zum Restaurant Trans-Siberia und begegnet so Nikolaj und Kirill zum ersten Mal. Sie macht die Bekanntschaft des Inhabers Semjon - im Geheimen Boss der Bosse der "Vory V Zakone", der ihr bei der Übersetzung des Tagebuches helfen will. Denn es dürfte voller belastenden Materialien besonders über seine Familie sein. Damit begibt sich Anna mitten ins Herz einer gnadenlosen Organisation, die vor absolut nichts zurückschreckt...Nikolaj bekommt tödliche Aufträge, die gegen Annas Familie gerichtet sind. Aber er führt sie nicht aus, er plant anderes. Als ihm die Aufnahme in den inneren Kreis der kriminellen Organisation zusammen mit den damit verbundenen "Sternen" - der Tätowierungen - angetragen wird, nimmt er an. Sein ganzer Körper erzählt die Geschichte eines Lebens außerhalb der Gesetze, nur denen der Bruderschaft folgend...Es wird immer dramatischer, und nur das beherzte Eingreifen Nikolajs kann tödliche Konsequenzen für Anna, ihre Familie und die winzige Christine verhindern. Aber alles hat seinen Preis - nur zahlen diesmal auch endlich einmal die wahren Schuldigen. Aber auf Details kann ohne Spoilern hier nicht näher eingegangen werden.Ein Film, der tiefe Einblicke in das Leben der Russen in London zeigt. Wie die Familien feiern, leben und nichts deutet auf die oft kriminellen Zusammenhänge hin. Gangster kümmern sich um ihre Kleinen, und hinter den Kulissen vergehen sie sich brutal an blutjungen Mädchen. Dass Kirill eigentlich Nikolaj liebt, wird bald jedem klar. Und es ist der Einfluss, den Nikolaj auf Kirill hat, der letztendlich unschuldige Leben rettet.In meinen Augen ein echtes Meisterwerk, das harte Nerven voraussetzt. Aber das weiß jede/r bereits vor dem Ansehen des Filmes. Ausgesprochen interessant sind auch die Extras über die nicht ganz einfachen Dreharbeiten vor Ort in London. Regisseur und Darsteller/innen äußern sich dazu. Auch die Zugabe "Marked for Life" ist wirklich eindrucksvoll.Vom psychologischen Aspekt betrachtet, wird bald immer klarer, wer das echte Monster ist. Und ein unstabiler Charakter wie Kirill wurde Zeit seines Lebens derart unter Erfolgdruck gesetzt, dass er sich nur so entwickeln konnte, wie er eben geformt wurde. Nikolaj scheint fast zu gut für diese Verhältnisse, aber auch das hat seine guten Gründe.Von mir die vollen 5***** Sterne - absolut verdient von allen Beteiligten, inclusive der Musik.

Eastern Promises is directed by David Cronenberg and written by Steven Knight. It stars Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel and Armin Mueller-Stahl. Music is by Howard Shore and cinematography by Peter Suschitzky.When a Russian teenager dies in childbirth, midwife Anna Khitrova (Watts) tries to seek out any relatives so that the baby will not be put into the foster care system. Following leads written in the dead girl's harrowing diary, Anna is led to mysterious Russian chauffeur Nikolai Luzhin (Mortensen) and the underworld of the Russian Mafia.After the critical and box office success of A History of Violence in 2005, it was no surprise to see director Cronenberg and lead man Mortensen team up again for another violent thriller. Perhaps less surprising is that it's equally as great, more proof positive that even when the great director goes mainstream he's still making powder-keg cinema.Set in London, a seamy London at that, Eastern Promises takes a look at a criminal underworld thriving beneath the city's glossy veneer. This isn't about the rat-a-tat of machine guns, this is slow and methodical criminality, where all roads lead to pain and misery for anyone not in league with, or on the wrong side of, the Vory V Zakone. Cronenberg never lets the film go up a pace, which is absolutely to the film's benefit, even as violence is rendered, and body horror (hey this is Cronenberg after all) comes our way, it's cloaked in a controlled melancholy that just pulses with sinister beats.Steven Knight's screenplay has a few tricks up its sleeve, not only on revelation terms, but also thematically as loyalty and family dynamics come under the microscope. There's also strong themes of identity and sexuality, again these are things that appeal to the director and he deftly inserts them into his pot-boiling conundrum. While the moral questions that Eastern Promises asks, are not answered by the makers, it is us the audience left to ponder such moral quandaries.The look is terrific, steely neo-noir photography for city streets and scapes, pronounced reds and greens scorch the eyes in certain interiors, and muted cold colours adorn the screen for moments of murky doings. Of course tech credits are no good if the central acting performance is off form, but once again for Cronenberg, Mortensen comes up trumps with a clinical portrayal. He looks perfect physically, with his torso adorned with striking tattoos, but also his mannerisms are magnetic, effortlessly shifting between ruthless mob employee and sensitive humanitarian. He also has to play his cards close to his chest, and he does so with great skill, while his Russian accent holds superbly. Cronenberg and Mortensen researched the topic vigorously, and it shows.Elsewhere the other actors also provide colourful and emotionally smart portrayals. Watts is a bit short changed with the character as written, and it's an irk that it never gives the actress more meat to chew on. Yet she draws you into Anna's stoic belief system with ease and she does a rather ace British accent as well. Stahl is just terrifying, the embodiment of a Godfather figure prepared to enact unspeakable crimes while ensuring the codes of family and the mob are never tampered with. And on the outer edges, with a tricky characterisation that calls for quick shifts of temperament, is Cassel, the presence and a jumping-bean bouncing around Mortensen's calm assuredness. While in secondary support it's great to see Donald Sumpter used to good effect as the senior police officer in charge of investigations.From the early sight of blood splattering on the floor of a pharmacy, to a most brazen and astonishingly raw fight staged in a Turkish bath house, Eastern Promises is never dull or what you could term normal. And yet this is why Cronenberg is still one of the finest auteur directors out there, because Eastern Promises always plays out as frighteningly real. 8/10

For whatever reason, this film simply did not have the fullness of atmosphere that I expect from Cronenberg. It felt somehow thin, like he did not understand the culture in the way that he does that of Northern America. As is his hallmark, it also has extremely graphic violence, to the point that it was sickening for me in ways that his previous films have not been, but that is subjective, I suppose. I couldn't quite believe it, though it is a near miss.The story is about Eastern EUropean criminals, who are operating in London. Unable to return home, they are carving a new niche for themselves in prostitution, drugs, and contract killing. Cronenberg struggles to recreate their unique culture and some of it works, such as the tattoo tradition, whereby their lives are displayed for anyone to see (if they are naked). Enter an innocent, Watts, who is a midwife taking care of the baby whose birth killed her mother, a sex slave from the Ukraine. Watts decides to investigate, starting with a notebook she wants to translate. Naively, she goes to a restauranteur seeking answers, a charming and mild mannered man who is not what he appears. His son (Cassell) and helper (Mortensen) are the principal characters who carry out his dirty work; their chemistry is the most believable aspect of the entire film and expertly acted. Mortensen's character is mysterious: he is a brute who can kill, but also has a sympathetic side, at least for Watts. What the film lacks in finesse, it tries to make up in violence and nudity, almost entirely of Mortensen. It didn't work for me.Recommended tepidly.

David Cronenberg allows the violence to face us head on in this England based movie. There is no warning and we are upfront and then it recedes. But we remember what we have seen and heard and there is no going back. This is a gangster world foreign to us, a world of horror, violence and a culture we cannot understand. Trafficking in human misery and total control of all things.Eastern Promises is a bristling film that shows the inside of the Russian Mafia. Viggo Mortenson, plays Nikolai, a driver and henchman for Semyon, played by Armin Mueller-Stahl, the owner of a trans-Siberian restaurant in London. Semyon looks like a nice old soul, but underneath he is a monster who will stop at nothing and his son, Kirill, Vincent Cassel, plays his role masterfully, a man with no conscience. Naomi Watts plays Anna, a midwife in London. She assists in the delivery of a baby born to a young 14 year old who was raped, and who dies after the birth. Anna tries to find the baby's relatives using her mother's diary. The diary is the secret life of Kirill and Semyon and their home of women used for their pleasure. Anna and Nikolai meet on several occasions, but Nikolai plays his role of the tough, haunted man to the hilt. For Anna and Nikolai, Semyon will unlock secrets neither wants to face.

"Eastern Promises" is a menacing,violent film set in the underworld of the Russian Mafia in London.The film is very visceral and doesn't balk at showing the highly unsavoury and vicious lifestyle of the East European gangsters. A young midwife (Naomi Watts) gets drawn into the Mob scene after delivering a baby for a teenage Ukrainian girl who dies in childbirth.Her search for the next of kin leads her to a Russian restaurant which is the base for three leading gangsters and her life and that of her family gets placed in jeopardy by her having read the dead girl's diary. The highlight of the film is the interplay between the three Russians with excellent performances from Vince Cassell as the "godfather"'s drunken ,unstable son and heir and Viggo Mortensen as his taciturn ,mysterious sidekick. The acting and characterisation in the film is first rate and the film is gripping throughout. However the violence is quite disturbing and graphic , especially the barbaric scenes in a public baths.