Eastern Promises is an effective and successful gangster movie, but not much more than that. I am as surprised by its massive critical success as I was with David Cronenberg's previous movie, A History of Violence. This movie proves that the director can work effectively outside of favorite genre, science fiction, but never transcends its genre.
The biggest difference between Promises and the typical crime film is the setting- instead New York or Tokyo, it is set in London and involves the Russian mafia. It is also strangely set in the future (2013), a fact the movie does nothing with (perhaps a holdover from an earlier screenplay?). The protagonist is an MD named Anna (Naomi Watts) of Russian ancestry who one day delivers a baby from a fourteen year old mother. The mother dies in childbirth and leaves behind a diary written in Russian which she hopes her immigrant uncle (Jerzy Skolimowski) will translate. She also drops by a local Russian restaurant, which, unknown to her, is also a front for a crime family, led by Semyon (Armand Mueller-Stahl). The mob boss is training his son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel) to take his place, and Kirill is in turn training a new recruit named Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). Nikolai and Anna eventully meet and form a strange working relationship, which becomes strained when Anna's uncle provides her with a translation- Semyon is the baby's father. He raped the mother and will order the deaths of anyone who finds out.
The film returns to many typical gangster themes- the conflict between morality and duty, family and exile, and whether civilians should report the illegal activities or risk their own lives. This material is interesting, but there is nothing in the film's discourse that is not found in the Godfather series or the oeuvre of Martin Scorsese. Where the movie really stands out is in the acting- this is Mortensen's best performance. At first, I found the actor as a Russian to be a comical prospect (thoughts of cheesy cold war thrillers jumped into my head), but the actor is so good that I soon got over it. There is also a fight scene at the end of the film, reminiscent of the famous centerpiece in Hitchcock's Torn Curtain, that reveals him to be a brave actor, to say the least. All of the acting is effective, which is even more impressive considering the movie's geographic origins- set in England, by a Canadian director, starring an Australian as an Englishwoman and an American as a Russian.
Had I gone into this movie with no prior knowledge I might have been more impressed, but the picture doesn't live up to the hype. Nonetheless, this is a good crime film, better and less gimmicky than most.
Eastern Promises (2007)