Eastern Promises Review
by Joe Lopez (joejoeloe AT gmail DOT com)January 30th, 2008
Film Review: Eastern Promises
Written by Joseph Lopez
Allow me to preface the following with a statement of undeniable fact - Viggo Mortensen is a fantastic actor. A rare thespian, in fact, with the unique ability to take a should be stereotypical character and succeed in bringing him to life. Witness the sword wielding man's man of Middle Earth, or the unassuming not-so-average joe of any-town, USA. Viggo delivers perspective where most would settle for the obvious.
Viggo is one of the best actors in the industry today, but is that enough to make him a viable (and valuable) leading man? To be fair, great as Viggo may have been in A History Of Violence, it was said violence that stands out as the show stealer far more than the actor's performance. And who do you remember more, Aragorn or those ring obsessed hobbits? Viggo may often be first billed, but does he leave a lasting impression?
Eastern Promises, the latest journey into the world of director David Cronenberg, brings two familiar elements from Cronenberg's previous film, the aforementioned Violence - Viggo and, well, violence. And again, while Viggo does a brilliant job of creating character here, somehow those nude, brutal bathhouse fight scenes garner more attention. Go figure.
Naomi Watts plays a midwife with her nose firmly placed in business not her own. After an underage girl dies while giving birth on Midwife Anna's shift, she feels compelled to find out what happened to this girl. Armed with the deceased mother's diary, Anna searches for the truth, finding that the path leads directly into the heart of London's Russian mafia.
The film lacks, straight from the offset, a clear protagonist for the audience to follow. Anna is too weak in nature to take on this role, while Viggo, as a driver of few emotions for the Russians, lacks any clear motivation in the story. He comes across as a guy with a stronger moral compass than those of his employers, but he doesn't seem to be doing anything about it. Viggo's performance is something to witness, a truly great feat of acting, making this motivation issue a fault of the screenplay.
It isn't until the last fourth of the film that something remedies the above issue, done in a way that is supposed to make you look back and see everything that already happened in a different light. It works, but nevertheless does not change the experience of watching those scenes initially. Had the "reveal" arrived earlier in the picture, much of the story would have come together far more successfully.
In regards to the film's other star - the violence - there is nothing wrong with using gore, however profane, in film. It need only be relevant to the story, not done for shlock value. This is where A History Of Violence works so well; we learn significant truths about the characters through the radical brutality. Some of Eastern Promises does this too, and some doesn't. The bathhouse fight scene is perfectly executed, destined to be a scene strived for by future genre movies for years to come. Other scenes come across as violent just because. Perhaps, again, it comes from a lack of motivation. If the scene does not feel necessary, then the ferocity comes across as unnecessary.
Mortensen isn't the traditional leading man of today's Hollywood. He doesn't take over an entire film and turn it into a vehicle all his own. He isn't Tom Cruise. Yet Mortensen is the perfect leading man. Strong, silent, and always capable of stepping back and bringing forward his fellow cast and the plot of the film. Mortensen does exactly this in Eastern Promises. That his uncanny ability causes the film's weaknesses to come out as well is no fault of the actor. Blame the director, blame the writer, but blame not the leading man.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
