By the first 15 minutes of David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, there’s already been a fair-share of bloodshed. A Russian mobster has his throat slit in a barber’s chair, a young prostitute haemorrhages during childbirth, and the baby is covered in the blood of her mother, now dead leaving only the baby and a diary behind. With all this potential and diversity in story shown in such a short time, it is disappointing that apart from the extreme scenes of violence, Eastern Promises fails to provoke any sort of reaction.
Eastern Promises features the real-life Vory V Zakone, an underground Russian gang, helmed by Semyon, a softly spoken and ruthless old mobster played by Armin Mueller Stahl. His son, Kirill, played by Vincent Kassel and their driver Nikolai, played by Viggo Mortensen (who featured in Cronenberg’s stylistically messy A History of Violence) all revolve around a plot to stop Anna, a midwife who finds the diary, incriminating the gang members in several sex-trafficking related crimes. The problem with all this is that the intention is to explore the way-of-life of these gangsters from the outside, but this doesn’t happen because the gang is never fully mapped out. They never commit any crimes. They seem to have only one building at their disposal. There only seems to be about 5 members. I never felt the full force of their power like I did for the wise-guys in Goodfellas. The violence does show the extreme behaviour that naturally exudes from living this kind of life, but even then they only seem to go after each other. Even the mysterious higher-up leaders don’t provide more detail, simply showing up from hidden sources of power and strength that we aren’t privy to – I was disappointed at the end at how little we learnt about how the Russian mob operated, they seemed more like a failing business than a controlling, intimidating crime-squad. Cronenberg also fails to give London the same kind of black, pulsing heart of the L.A in Heat, or the New York of Goodfellas – Further making the film feel more artificial, like it isn’t taking place in anywhere in reality.
Viggo Mortensen’s is a rare case of a deserved Oscar nomination for his embodiment of the role. The accent is pitch-perfect, the mannerisms and style all collecting to create his character. His personality is never really exposed, never beyond much more than downplayed intelligence and natural charm. He always seems like both an outsider and an adamant insider, his moral compass swinging around throughout the film and never landing squarely on a single spot. Even when the film itself is mediocre and plodding, he is always fascinating to watch, never knowing when his character may evolve into something we haven’t yet been shown.
The ending of Eastern Promises somewhat lends itself to a possible sequel – Which I doubt will ever take place, though part of me wishes would. I felt like I’d only been shown a glimpse, then torn away from the deepest, darkest corners of the Russian crime-world – The characters and their dynamics are interesting to watch, but even that and Viggo Mortensen’s commanding screen presence didn’t fully make up for the lack of depth or detail in the films narrative and focus point. For a film that I was never bored to watch I was surprised at how little I got out of it.
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