Reviews by Matt

I need to confess something to you dear reader; I have been putting this one off for a while. For the past few weeks I have been giving you reviews of television shows, not just because it is a lot cheaper than a movie, but because the movie climate of the past few weeks has, well, sucked. There was only one movie that I really wanted to see that was worth the price of admission. So instead of going out and wasting a review, I waited. Now that, beginning tomorrow, the movies get better, or at least more interesting, I decided it was time to step back into a theater, pay close to four dollars for a bottle of water (first and last time I will do that) and see one of those moving pictures I have heard so much about.

In “Eastern Promises,” Anna (Naomi Watts) is a midwife at a hospital. When a young pregnant girl dies during childbirth, Anna takes her diary to find out if she has any relatives. This leads her to a restaurant where she worked, which is run by Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) a member of the Vory V Zakone, a powerful Russian gang living in England. Semyon says he will translate the diary, which is in Russian, and if he finds a name or address, he will let her know. As the movie progresses, Anna’s life becomes intertwined with Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), a driver for the gang and man who seems to be a gangster with a heart.

I have always liked Naomi Watts. She has done an amazing job in just about every movie she has ever been in. She and the monkey made “King Kong” good. She is an incredible actress and has found success in both big budget movies and in smaller, independent movies. In this movie she plays a woman who is very caring. She puts herself and her aunt and uncle in danger as she peruses finding out more about the mother of the baby. She knows that if the family is not found that the baby will end up in the foster care system and she would be stuck there all her life. Anna takes it upon herself to give this baby a better life.

Mortensen is an actor who throws himself into his character. For this role, he traveled to Moscow alone without a translator, read books on the Vory V Zakone, visited Russian prisons and even learned all his lines in English, Ukrainian and Russian. He does not just act, he becomes. He puts everything into his roles and it shows on screen. His character is a mystery. He is a murderer, but he also has a softer side he shows to Anna.

The violence in this movie is brutal. None of the gang members carry guns. As I found out the gun laws in Britain are stricter than the laws in the United States. All the villains use knives to kill. One scene in particular sticks out. Nikoali is in a bathhouse when two men attack him with knives. Besides being unarmed he is also completely naked. He is forced to fight them off with nothing to protect himself with. This scene is full of pure, raw and, pardon the pun, naked violence. He is cut multiple times, thrown all over the rooms and gets beaten within an inch of his life before the scene is over.
“Eastern Promises” was worth holding out for. It is well done in every aspect, both in front of the camera and all the behind the scenes work as well.

It exposes the lack of concern for releasing movies with heart and starring more than flash in the pan actors who are nothing more than tabloid fodder and will be gone as soon as the hype subsides. With nothing more than time wasting filler being released over the past few weeks, it was nice to finally get to a movie that is well done and worth the time. Thankfully we are out of the bottom of the barrel movies and finally we seem to be getting into quality movies.

8/10
R, for strong brutal and bloody violence, some graphic sexuality, language and nudity.
1 hr 40 mins