The feuds and Pecadillos of the Russian Mafia transported to present day London ,”multiculturalism” , indeed!
Another David Cronenberg /Viggo Mortensen film ,you might say..
What a face this guy has,like a clenched fist ,with cheekbones you could hang your coat on…fast becoming an Icon of Cinema…
Add two equally iconic “lookers” Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassel.and ,hello,this looks good,we are just round the corner from where I last saw Jason Bourne being chased through Waterloo Station!…
London , here,looks positively Dickensian though ,all browns and yellows,“our mutual friend” the River providing a convenient way to dispose of bodies , accessed via unlit cobbled alleyways…these locations are familiar to me,what could be the aptly named “The Cut” near Waterloo, the Docklands around Wapping , then Finsbury Park., this is Talking Heads' “dark in the daytime” London.
Equally familiar,this time from “Goodfellas”, is the garish interior décor,and transplanted,day long , alchohol fuelled “family business” of the RussoMafia hierarchy
Vincent Cassel is the hot headed crazy, but his Father is the real “Monster”. Cassel chews the scenery in order to bring about the manipulative ending.
Naomi Watts seems so familiar , wey- faced and convincing as ever…
However , it’s mostly about Viggo, that face ,that tattooed body, under attack ..
A few things that bothered me, mawkishness in the Russian accented voice-over of the young girl’s diary,coupled with “heart-strings” violin ,( why not hear the voice of the reader?, and NO music please) unintentional(?) comedy with Naomi teetering along on a vast old Russian motorcycle , looking like she just made it out of shot each time.,but.maybe THAT was seamless CGI?
As things galloped desperately to conclusions the ending seemed incredibly trite,but despite that ,there are rich seams of content here .
Four stars...