+ Best London Movie of the Year + Best Mob Movie of the Year + Best Villain of the Year: Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai + Best Fight Scene of the Year (the bath house fight) + Most Undeserved Flop of the Year
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| The poster for David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises prominently features the tattooed hands of Viggo Mortensen's character in the film |
QUICK REVIEW:
A British-Russian midwife in a London hospital makes a fateful find as she helps birth the daughter of a young Russian rape victim who dies in labor: The girl's diary subsequently leads her on a frightening and dangerous road to the local Russian mob.
Eastern Promises is an excellent mob thriller written by Steven Knight (Pawn Sacrifice (2014)) and directed by Canadian master filmmaker David Cronenberg (Naked Lunch (1991)). It is a rare film, because it deals with the Russian mob in London, and from what the movie shows, the cinematically ubiquitous Italian mob sort of fades against the hardcore vileness of the Russian hoods.
The story is exciting, and Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive (2001)) is great as the midwife who needs to know what happened and soon finds herself in trouble for this. Oscar-nominated Viggo Mortensen (Albino Alligator (1996)) is tough as nails as Nikolai, SPOILER who partakes in the film's bathhouse fight that must go down in cinema history as one of the greatest, most vicious fights of all time.
SPOILER My only real reservation to this fine film is that while it 'closes' the story of the baby, we get no conclusion as to the future of Nikolai; does he become boss? Does he reveal the mobsters? I really want to know, but the film ends with no answer given. Others feel this is part of its brilliance.
Related reviews:
David Cronenberg: Cosmopolis (2012) - Cronenberg/DeLillo/Pattinson's speculative limo lullaby
A Dangerous Method (2011) - Cronenberg's rather disappointing waltz with the fathers of modern psychology
2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
A History of Violence (2005) or, Who Is Tom Stall?
Spider (2002) - Cronenberg takes us to the tormented (and slightly dull) mind of a schizophrenic
Dead Ringers (1988) or, Brothers and Their Instruments
The Dead Zone (1983) - Eerie sci-fi/horror King-adaptation
The Brood (1979) or, Marital Fury and Craze!
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| Viggo Mortensen gives a show-stopping performance in David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises |
In lieu of a trailer, not currently on Youtube, here you can listen to 15 minutes of Howard Shore's score from the film
Cost: 50 mil. $
Box office: 56.1 mil. $
= Big flop
[Eastern Promises premiered September 8 (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 101 minutes. It was mostly shot on location in London, beginning in November 2006. The tattoos and portrayal of the Russian mob in the film is said to be truthful. The film won the Best Film audience prize in Toronto and was lauded critically. Roger Ebert among others awarded it a top grade, and it made several critics' top 10 lists of the year. In its wide release, it came in #5 (in 1,404 theaters) to a 5.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed a somewhat disappointing 17.2 mil. $ (30.7 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 6.8 mil. $ (12.1 %) and Spain with 4.8 mil. $ (8.6 %). The film received one Oscar nomination for Best Actor (Mortensen), which he lost to Daniel Day-Lewis for the masterpiece There Will Be Blood. It was also nominated for 3 Golden Globes, winning none. Talks of a sequel were laid to rest in 2013 by Cronenberg, who placed the responsibility with US distributor Focus Features' James Schamus. However, the blame most certainly lies with the big flop status of the original film, whose big budget is obvious in its top notch production value, talents and London locale. Eastern Promises is certified fresh at 89 % with a 7.6 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]
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