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Movie Review: Eastern Promises
By Doug on September 24th, 2007
Eastern Promises opens the way any good family movie should, with a guy getting his throat cut open at a barber shop. Lesson learned: the mafia is bad. Good to know.
The movie is about a mafia driver/bodyguard played by Viggo Mortensen and his developing relationship with both a London-based Russian crime family and a midwife (whatever the hell that is) played by Naomi Watts.
I’ll be honest, for the first 20 or so minutes of Eastern Promises, I thought the movie took place in Russia. I just figured it was a movie about the Russian mafia so it would make perfect sense that the movie would take place in Russia .
I remember sitting there wondering, “Why the hell are they speaking so much English?” Usually, the characters would speak English and only occasionally would the speak in Russian. I just figured the filmmakers wanted to make it easier on the audience like they did in Hunt for Red October. You know, have them speak mostly English and on occasion switch back to Russian to maintain a level of authenticity. Nobody wants to read subtitles all the time, right?
And I paid no mind to the fact that Naomi Watts lived with her family and they all spoke English. Again, maybe they were doing a Red October. Or maybe they were an English family living in Russia. It’s crazy in Russia , you know. Everything is opposite there (In Soviet Russia, hamburger eats you!).
I suppose I should have gotten it when Viggo Mortensen’s character was giving directions to Naomi Watts’ character and they were both looking at a big map of London. And then Viggo stopped mid-sentence, looked directly into the camera and said, “This movie takes place in London, not Russia.” Totally missed it.
Anywho, the plot in uber-Cliffs Notes form: A woman dies while giving birth, Naomi Watts takes care of the baby, finds the dead mother’s diary, gets it translated and finds out the woman was raped by someone in the mob, and befriends Viggo and then plot twist after plot twist after plot twist. And hilarity ensues! Not really.
I’ll be surprised if Viggo does not get an Academy Award nomination for his performance. Everything about his character, from his accent to his numerous tattoos convey that this is man has a definite past and is not to be taken lightly. There are certain shots where he comes across as a stone cold killer and others where you can tell that just maybe he’s not such a bad guy. There’s a scene where his character is ordered to have sex with a woman to prove he is not gay (wait, what?) and as he’s doing it you can see the torment in his face, as though perhaps he is not your average mob enforcer.
Then, there’s the much talked about shower fight scene. It’s a balls-out (literally) scene not for the squeamish. I’ll just say the conclusion of the scene had everyone in the theatre cringing and muttering something along the lines of “Oh shit.” It’s a very well done, very realistic fight scene. Well, that’s not to say that I know what it’s like to be attacked by two guys with knives in a London bath house. Still, that scene alone almost makes the movie worth the price of admission.
If you like movies about the mafia, this one’s for you. If you liked the blood and guts and overall badassery of Goodfellas and Casino but could have done without all the Wopishness, go see this. If you want to see Viggo Mortensen as his usual badass self and playing something other than King Aragorn or the mean guy from GI Jane, go see this. And if you are deeply obsessed with Lord of the Rings and want to see King Aragorn’s wang, well, I guess you’ve probably already seen this and downloaded a camcorder bootleg copy of it and watched it over and over. You weirdo.
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Love,
Yakov Smirnoff
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