Movie review: Eastern Promises

There's borscht on the menu at the Trans-Siberian - just don't ask for the recipe.

by John P. Meyer

Director David Cronenberg - the Canadian filmmaker who's been shocking the shorts off unprepared mainstream filmgoers since the release of Rabid (1977) and Scanners (1981) - delivers his latest skewed-perspective opus to the big screen this week in the form of Eastern Promises.

While this Cronenberg picture (much like his last outing, A History of Violence) follows a more traditional crime story plot line (thanks to a script by Dirty Pretty Things writer Steven Knight), it's replete with recognizable Cronenberg touches: specifically, the uncomfortably intimate depiction of fevered sex (remember the scene in last year's A History of Violence where Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello make like rabbits on the stairs? I do... because I can't help it) and a tendency for the camera to linger on gaping wounds. Cronenberg refuses to allow a cutting to go by without zooming in and lingering on the new orifice it creates in the victim's anatomy.

Viggo returns as Cronenberg's lead in Eastern Promises, playing a limo driver and erstwhile "cleaner" named Nikolai who's employed by a Russian mobster operating out of London. Sharing top billing is Naomi Watts as a midwife of Russian heritage working at a neighborhood hospital. Although Anna (Naomi's character) speaks no Russian and is English by birth, the regular household visits of her emigrant uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski) keep her well acquainted with the self-indulgent, bigoted, misogynist nature of the average vodka-swilling Russian adult male.

Heading up the local crime syndicate is restaurateur Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl, in finely-nuanced institutionalized evil fettle) whose ritzy Trans-Siberian serves as a (fully functioning) front for everything from wine smuggling to human trafficking (of the underage prostitute variety). Semyon's son Kirill (slimily portrayed by Vincent Cassel) has sexual identity issues in a sub-culture which demonizes such ambiguity, leading to compensative bouts of excessive (even for a Russian male) drinking and over-reactive violence.

Anna follows up on a lead relating to the recent emergency room death of a 14-year-old girl who delivered a healthy child even as she expired. In the girl's coat pocket Anna finds a diary - written in Russian - along with a card for the Trans-Siberian restaurant. It's while visiting this establishment to hunt down young Tatiana's family (for the purpose of transferring the child to surviving relatives) that Anna encounters the imposing rock-like presence of Nikolai and his leering companion Kirill; she's somewhat relieved to discover that the establishment's owner (Semyon) is a well-mannered, fatherly gentleman, apparently sympathetic to her cause. Although he apologizes for not being able to shed light on Tatiana's identity or circumstances, he's enthusiastic about assisting Anna with a translation of the diary: perhaps overly-enthusiastic, Anna decides.

Meanwhile, back at her London flat, Anna's Uncle Stepan has done some random translating of his own, and what he gleans is enough for him to warn Anna to drop the whole thing. Too late: Anna is determined to keep the defenseless babe from the smothering arms of the state-run child care system, and of course by this time well-lubricated and implacable wheels are in motion back at the Trans-Siberian.

Mr. Mortensen's physical presence dominates any frame in which he appears by virtue of his mesomorph solidity. His Nikolai represents the sort of idealized Russian alpha male who might have just stepped from the stone perch of a patriotic sculpture; indeed, by all appearances a punch to Nikolai's stony jaw would result in naught but broken knuckles. As icing on the beefcake, Viggo can act - in contrast to some other portrayers of Russian hulks, there's as much going on beneath the tough exterior as there is on its surface, and Viggo strategically allows the internal meshing of gears to peek through. Furthermore, his Ruskie accent - to this North Texan, at least - sounds spot on.

Ms. Watts has far less to work with by way of character; her Anna is confined to essaying sympathetic concern for the motherless child and demonstrating steadfast determination along the road to resolving the mystery of Tatiana's death. (Oh, and she gets to act mildly frightened a couple of times.) What her portrayal most calls to mind, riding around the streets of London on her motorbike in helmet, muffler and sporty leathers, is the Orbit gum girl. ("Fabulous!") Anna's primary role in the script is to represent the sort of decent human society that Nikolai only encounters because of a fluke of timing; her wholesomeness and good will are a unique presence in his universe of acquaintances - and an utterly transitory one.

[Rather than leave anyone hanging (ahem), I should point out that the impassioned sex act referred to earlier does not involve Ms. Watts' character - although Mr. Mortensen does have a hand in it. Figuratively speaking.]

The most harrowing episode of the film (which says a lot, this being Cronenberg) takes place in a Turkish bath where the naked Nikolai is forced to engage in hand-to-hand combat against a pair of pissed-off (and fully-clothed) Chechnyans out to avenge their dead brother. The brutality of the scene is somehow magnified by Nikolai's birthday suit bare-handed battering of the carpet knife-wielding thugs who - after cutting a bit of carpet - find their weapons turned against them. (Though not until much thudding of flesh against steam room tile has transpired. Ouch!)

Contrast this breathless life-and-death struggle with the elegiac ceremony of Nikolai's induction into the crime syndicate's inner circle - during which he sits at the focus of an arc of mob overlords, stripped to his shorts to display the tattoos which chronicle his rise through the criminal underworld, ritually renouncing his mother and father while bespeaking fealty to his criminal brethren.

That the film ends inconclusively (and thus disappointingly for those who like their entertainment packages neatly bound) lends it something of an unexpected - and delayed - final punch, with Nikolai sitting morosely in the lonely seat of power he's sacrificed so much to acquire; Anna, a woman he grew to admire (and risked much to protect) is nowhere on his radar.

GOOD BLOODY ADVICE: "Now I'm going to do his teeth and cut off his fingers. You might want to leave room." - Nikolai to Azim (Mina E. Mina), preparing to process a corpse for which the latter is responsible

SPOKEN LIKE ONE WHO KNOWS: "If you want to dump body, this is best place." - Nikolai to Kirill

BETTER THAN SALIVA: "For poetic reasons I suggest you take his blood." - Nikolai to investigator