“Eastern Promises” –
Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl
While I do enjoy Viggo, this sort of film, fraught with what I deem to be senseless violence, simply seems to be the most popular genre these days. The best part about this was the title and it held far more promise than the movie shared. In a nutshell this is the incredibly desperate story of a young girl who dies in child birth but leaves behind her diary including the dark secrets of being prostituted by the Russian mafia. In getting the diary translated from Russian to English it falls into the hands of the “godfather” and his full fury is unleashed in quelching it and much more. Viggo is the driver of the family and clean up man whose loyalties become divided by his attraction to the midwife who is seeking justice. Mueller-Stahl and Cassel both turn in terrific performances making the film tolerable, but it simply left me with a bleak feeling of incompleteness.
