Eastern Promises

So David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen decided to get hitched and live happily ever after. Well, this marriage of director and actor is still young but thus far it’s produced two films that stand as the career highpoints of both men; first in 2005’s crackling A History of Violence and now this: Eastern Promises, a terrific London-set tale that delves into the chilling underworld of Russian mobsters complete with some of the most bone-crunching, uncomfortable in-your-face violence you’ll see on a screen.

Not that Eastern Promises goes out of its way to be brutal for kicks; this isn’t action entertainment, this is a depiction of a tough world where extreme unpleasantness is part and parcel of business and the camera’s eye doesn’t flinch from following it so, regardless of the teeth-gritting effect it will have on its audience. The film earns its 18 certificate within its first two minutes, and though the body count remains relatively low throughout, it’s the visceral anti-cartoon nature of the violence that leaves the sick taste in the mouth. A steam room punch-up late in the film will be spoken of in debates for decades to come, I’m sure.

How we find ourselves in this murky world is largely through the efforts of midwife Anna, whom delivers a baby from a young dying girl and is moved by the tragedy of the situation and the discovery of the girl’s diary to investigate the unfortunate circumstances without being perturbed and compromised by the very dark and very sordid alleys to which her interest leads. Something of an angel with a sadness in her eyes, Anna is played by pretty Naomi Watts, whom is even prettier with an English rose accent and such a sympathetic character so excellently portrayed.

It’s Mortensen who is truly on fire here, though. He’s tell-all-your-friends fantastic as the fascinatingly ambiguous and very tough Nickolai; a driver and disposal man for the Russian mob whose past is literally etched all over his body in the form of tattoos which we learn are important symbols of experience and status to separate the men from the boys in grisly Soviet criminal culture.

Even if Mortensen was the only good thing about this film, it’d still be worth going to see for his performance alone. Handily, there’s classy support from the always-excellent Vincent Cassel as the emotionally-troubled, temperamentally-volatile Kirill, as well as from Armin Mueller-Stahl as his ruthless, domineering mafia boss father - a deeply unpleasant man indeed, behind the charming facade of a friendly Eastern European restaurant proprietor who can whip up a cracking bit of Russian tuck to disarm any threats to his criminal empire's longevity.

Grim, hard-hitting and with shots of very black humour, Eastern Promises may be the best and most memorable thing you’ll see all year.