FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

Eastern Promises (2007, UK, Canada, USA)

Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl
Running Time: 100 mins.

The master of body horror David Cronenberg made an outing in the gangster genre with A History of Violence, one of the surprise hits of 2005. I guess he liked it, because he soon followed it up with another gangster movie called Eastern Promises, once again starring Viggo Mortensen. A young Russian girl dies in childbirth, leaving a diary found by nurse Anna (Naomi Watts), who wants to return the baby to its family. Unable to read Russian, Anna seeks help and meets Semyon, a restaurant owner and leader of the brutal Russian mob Vory v Zakone. His enforcers – Kirill (Vincent Cassel), a violent, closeted homosexual, and Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), a cunning newcomer – compete for Semyon’s approval. The diary reveals the girl was one of Semyon’s prostitutes, her life story unfolding in voice-over as the film’s central thread. The casting of non-Russians in the leading roles turns out very well. Mortensen speaks Russian like a pro. The details of the reality the filmmakers created are also spot-on: the underworld body tattoos that tell a person’s life story, the folk music, the accents, it is all very well executed. A few scenes stand out: Nikolai’s initiation ritual and a brutal fight in a bathhouse most notably. The characters are also beautifully realised, especially Cassel’s Kirill. You can feel the tension rise as his father swaps Nikolai for Kirill like he swaps a Ukrainian girl for a case of cheap booze. It is only a shame that ultimately too little is done with these characters. After we learn a big secret, the movie pretty much ends abruptly. Still works on many levels, and the cast and crew’s craftsmanship make it definitely worth viewing.