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Eastern Promises (Widescreen Edition) | 
 enlarge | Director: David Cronenberg
Actors: Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-stahl, Sinéad Cusack
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
List Price: $12.98
Buy Used: $2.23
You Save: $10.75 (83%)
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Rating:  187 reviews
Sales Rank: 2263
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 101 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: MCAD62033300D
UPC: 025193330024
EAN: 0025193330024
ASIN: B000YENUI6
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: December 23, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 01/27/2009 Run time: 101 minutes Rating: R
Amazon.com
David Cronenberg's signature obsessions flower in Eastern Promises, a stunning look at violence, responsibility, and skin. Near Christmastime in London, a baby is born to a teenage junkie--an event that leads a midwife (Naomi Watts) into the world of the Russian mob. Central to this world is an ambitious enforcer (Viggo Mortensen) who's lately buddied up with the reckless son (Vincent Cassel) of a mob boss (Armin Mueller-Stahl, doing his benign-sinister thing). Screenwriter Steve Knight also wrote Dirty Pretty Things, and in some ways this is a companion piece to that film, though utterly different in style. The plot is classical to the point of being familiar, but Cronenberg doesn't allow anything to become sentimental; he and his peerless cinematographer Peter Suschitzky take a cool, controlled approach to this story. Because of that, when the movie erupts in its (relatively brief) violence, it's genuinely shocking. Cronenberg really puts the viewer through it, as though to shame the easy purveyors of pulp violence--nobody will cheer when the blood runs in this film. Still, Eastern Promises has a furtive humor, nicely conveyed in Viggo Mortensen's highly original performance. Covered in tattoos, his body a scroll depicting his personal history of violence, Mortensen conveys a subtle blend of resolve and lost-ness. He's a true, haunting mystery man. --Robert Horton Stills from Eastern Promises (click for larger image). Photos by Peter Mountain. 
Vincent Cassel (left) and Viggo Mortensen (right) star in David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES, a Focus Features release. | 
Armin Mueller-Stahl (center) stars in David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES, a Focus Features release. | 
Viggo Mortensen (left) and Naomi Watts (right) star in David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES, a Focus Features release. | 
Viggo Mortensen (left) and Naomi Watts (right) star in David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES, a Focus Features release. | 
Naomi Watts stars in David Cronenberg's new thriller EASTERN PROMISES, a Focus Features release. | 
Armin Mueller-Stahl (left) and Naomi Watt (right) star in David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES, a Focus Features release. | 
Mina E. Mina (left), Vincent Cassel (center) and Viggo Mortensen (right) star in David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES, a Focus Features release. | 
Vincent Cassel stars in David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES, a Focus Features release. | 
Viggo Mortensen stars in David Cronenberg's EASTERN PROMISES, a Focus Features release. |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 182 more reviews...
 A little confusing, but ok December 10, 2008
Bradley F. Smith (Miami Beach, FL)
Though it gets off to a very slow start, this Russian mafia tale finishes fairly strongly and you will be entertained. Some scenes are not for the sqeamish, and the blood letting begins very early. If you don't blanch at neck slittings, finger snippings and the sight of someone plunging a knife into someone else's eyeball, then you will get through this. Also, there's a rough scene of Viggo Mortensen in mortal combat while nude. It's funny, sort of. This is really a small movie in the end, and in no way the equal of the far superior "A History of Violence" by the same director. Still, worth watching.
Feelings December 8, 2008
Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States)
Cronenberg is a masterful director and his two main actors are very good playing Londoners of Russian descent, although you wonder why he couldn't have just gotten some actors who were either Londoners or Russian. The problem here is the script, which is the biggest load of cliches I have run into since the heyday of Constance Bennett and Gilbert Roland in the early 1930s. Okay, it was sad when the 14 year old girl loses her life in the poverty ward hospital and gives birth to baby Christine, and as we find out her diary tells an awful story, but it turns ludicrously camp after just a few entries. I'm sorry, but I got the giggles each time the voice-over started moaning about, "Today he addicted me to heroin. How I wish I had not left my home!"
And this kept coming back again and again, I suppose to underline the viciousness of Vincent Kassel and Armin Mueller-Stahl, both of them allowed far too much freedom to make the broadest possible acting choices. Is it possible that neither knew The Godfather had already been made? Mueller-Stahl in particular is just slimy evil. He asks Naomi Watts to dinner and politely asks, "And you have shown Christine's diary to no one?" What's a girl to do? I would say, I have sent it to the PO Box of three thousand leading world newspapers and to the BBC. But instead she just smiles back and says, "Oh, my uncle who has promised to translate it." "What's his address?" barks Armin Mueller-Stahl. But in spite of everything, Naomi Watts just does not get it.
Vincent Kassel--again, pure evil but with the Fredo twist of being mentally weak and a slave to his own addictions.
Viggo--what can I say? He is in top physical shape and, contrary to the other reviewer, he's got nothing to be ashamed of downstairs. But yes, after awhile, even in the famous fight scene, you start giggling because he's taken more abuse than Marlon Brando, and he survives everything--and what's more, learns something. It's Screenwriting 101, as written by DW Griffith. Lillian Gish MIGHT have been able to make something of that diary voice-over, but don't bet the farm on it.
And at the end of the picture, well, there should have been at least 20 minutes more of the movie, but test audiences must have gotten restless at the 90 minute mark, for the movie ends so abruptly I was still munching on my popcorn and anxiously awaiting a save. Didn't happen. Daylight. Eyes blinking in the light. Ripped off. Was it Fredo or James Caan?
Brutal and engrossing, and you'll learn how to use snippers to clip off a corpse's frozen fingers December 3, 2008
C. O. DeRiemer (San Antonio, Texas, USA)
Is it possible to take seriously a movie where the violent highlight is a vicious fight in a public bath? The fight requires, of course, that at least one of the male fighters be nude. In this case, it's the lead actor and there are no flopping bits that we don't see. Another requirement would be that knives must be involved so that we can get plenty of blood, along with wince-inducing moments when blades slice into back and stomach muscles. And for a coup de grace, what could be more ick worthy than a blade driven into an eyeball, with the crunch of the socket bone being shattered?
The bathhouse fight in Eastern Promises may be exploitive, but it's one of the most exciting, stunningly choreographed brawls I've seen on a screen. More to the point, it tells us something about the kind of man Nikolai is. He's the man who survives, and he's a lot tougher, smarter, more resourceful and more violent than we may have thought...and that's saying something, since we've already watched him "process" a corpse for anonymous disposal. It involved removing the teeth and fingers using pliers and a snipper.
Viggo Mortensen plays Nikolai, the driver, as he calls himself, for the head of a powerful and vicious gang of Russian mafia based in London. Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), the old man who owns the Trans-Siberian Restaurant, rules his criminal empire with guile and force. He is an aging man with white hair clipped short. He can be a friendly sort at times. He makes a wonderful pot of borscht. He plays the violin. He has daughters. He encourages his angels, his granddaughters, to learn the violin. "You must practice more," he tells them. "You must make the wood cry." Semyon spends much of his time running drugs and prostitution. He brings in underage girls from Eastern Europe who think they'll be maids and waitresses, then imprisons them, hooks them on heroin, brutalizes and breaks them with rape and beatings, and puts them to work. One 14-year-old girl escapes. She can barely speak English. She's pregnant and hemorrhaging. When she dies in a hospital her baby is saved and her diary is found. Eastern Promises is going to tell us about Anna (Naomi Watts), the nurse who helped deliver the baby and found the diary; about Semyon and the lengths he will go to protect himself, his power and his son; and about the driver, Nikolai, the man Semyon trusts as much as he would trust anyone. We're going to learn more than we want about Kirill (Vincent Cassel), Semyon's son. Kirill is a weakling who likes to beat people, a drunk, a man who breaks in the frightened girls by raping them on his father's orders and beats them when he can't perform. At one moment he embraces Nikolai as a brother, another he forces Nikolai into humiliating acts. Kirill grovels for his father's approval and beats others when he doesn't get it.
Eastern Promises is a fine movie, violent, complex and ugly. We're deep in London's Russian mafia, where violent thugs have tattoos that tell each other the story of their crimes, their murders and their imprisonments. Family is the only thing that counts, and even that becomes a repugnant concept. Moving through this is Nikolai, slab-faced, pale, calm to the point of being unnerving. When he seems drawn to Anna, we're never quite sure whether this will mean a degree of tenderness, or her death, or the death of the baby who has become a lever some would use against Semyon. "I'm just the driver," Nikolai says.
Through it all I was engrossed, partly with the world of these tattooed, dangerous men, partly with the subtle way David Cronenberg fiddled with my reactions and assumptions, and partly with just how good the actors were. Mortensen gave a stunning performance, down to his Russian-accented English, to his physicality and to the way he kept us off-balance with his intentions. Just as good was Armin Mueller-Stahl as Semyon. He has given us any number of wise old men to admire. Here he gives us a monster, opening layer upon layer of cruelty and betrayal. Mueller-Stahl just asking Anna with avuncular concern where she lives is able to raise the dread level with no effort at all.
There is a twist that cannot be described, and which I wish hadn't happened. Even with that, Eastern Promises is a movie worth seeing and owning.
The look of the film is just as tough and dark as the story. The DVD audio and picture are first-rate. The DVD has two extras. One, Marked for Life, tells us about all those Russian thug tattoos. It's short but interesting. And if you're of a certain age, you'll remind yourself to buy Cronenberg's Scanners (for your kids, of course) when you pick up Eastern Promises.
 Ridiculously implausible script November 20, 2008
Masha (Miami, Florida)
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
Apart from Viggo Mortensen, this movie is a waste of time. If they had acted it just a bit more over the top, it would have been a fine dark comedy. As it is, it's just dull and unrealistic. The violence is graphic and lurid, but doesn't add much to theme or plot. I felt it was gratuitous. If you want to see a much better movie about Russian mob life, try either "Brat" (Brother), "Brat II", or "Friend of the Deceased" (Ukrainian film). These three films have a lot more to say about life in the criminal trades, and just being human, than "Eastern Promises". Most of the plot line is just totally unrealistic.
Great mob story set in London November 17, 2008
Joseph P. Menta, Jr. (Philadelphia, PA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Brutal yet artful, subtle yet gripping, "Eastern Promises" packs dynamite in the story, acting, and directing departments. Director David Cronenberg and his new favorite lead actor Viggo Mortensen (they previously teamed up to make "A History of Violence") return to tell a gripping story of the Russian mob in London, and how fate brings the mob into contact with an ordinary family who suddenly finds itself with the power to bring the mob hierarchy down. Mr. Cronenberg doesn't shy away from the brutality of mob violence, but he doesn't linger on it, either. Still, the movie isn't for squeamish viewers.
Two short but satisfying special features round out the DVD: a seven-or-eight minute piece that features the director and actors talking about the film, and a seven-or-eight minute piece about the history and role of the elaborate criminal tattoos featured in the film. Combined, you get a good fifteen minutes or so of satisfying behind-the-scenes information. For most films, that's actually enough for me when it comes to special features. My widescreen DVD featured crisp, clear picture and sound.
In you enjoy films in the organized crime genre, you'll probably like "Eastern Promises" a lot. It has all the elements one expects to see in this type of film, but also throws you a few curves, too.
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