Video Americain

Amos Lassen wrote on 03/29/2011:

Usually I am not really fond of action movies but “Eastern Promises” really changed my mind about the genre. This movie will take your breath away and make your stomach do flips and then leave you thinking about good and evil. It is super violent with lots of blood—it is brutal and shocking and, above, unforgettable.
Nikolai Luzhin is a driver of one of the largest and most notorious organized crime families of Eastern European heritage in London. The family belongs to the Vory V. Zakone brotherhood headed by Semyon, a man of great charm with a cold, brutal mind. He owns a very plush restaurant, the Trans-Siberian. His son, Krill, is volatile and even more brutal than his father and who feels closer to Nikolai than to his own father.
Things begin to happen one Christmas when Nikolai meets Anna Khitrova, a midwife at a hospital in North London who is deeply affected when a teenaged girl dies giving birth. She is determined to find the baby’s family. She finds the girls diary which is written in Russian and she searches for clues here as to the identity of her dead girl. Anna’s uncle, who is Russian, urges her to use caution and we see that he is right because as Anna examines the diary, the fury of the Vory is unleashed. As Krill and Semyon begin to close ranks, Nikolai finds his allegiance divided and he does not know who to trust. Lives hang in the balance as murder, deceit and retribution echoes not only within the family but throughout London. Everyone exists on the periphery of the law.
David Cronenberg directed this movie with an élan not often seen in modern film. His technique is clinical and his visual style keeps the screen alive. He makes us uncomfortable but in a very subtle way. He gets under the skin so much that when the movie is over, it is hard to forget it.
The acting is fine throughout. As Nikolai, Viggo Mortensen shows a cold menacing quality that chills. His performance merited him a Golden Globe nomination as best actor. Vincent Cassel also portrays the character of Krill to near perfection. Naomi Watts as Anna is both tenacious and vulnerable.
Cronenberg approaches valence head-on. The opening of the film sets the tone wit a shocking and bloody beginning. There is one very brutal scene in a sauna that is orchestrated as a symphony of terror in which Mortensen is completely nude. Even with the violence, there is a flicker of hope. Most of the film seems to be based on hints and performed with slight gestures. The film states subliminally that ethics without promises of rewards can indeed occur even when it does so in the presence of great and dreadful evil. There is no sham psychology and the plot is an example of what a well written film is.