Promise Fulfilled!

Movie Name: Eastern Promises

Directed by: David Cronenberg

Casts: Naomi Watts, Viggo Martensen, Armin Muller-Tahl

Eastern Promises, a thriller directed by David Cronenberg famed for movies like “The Fly and A History of Violence”. Lead roles are Naomi watts and Viggo Martensen. Movie centred on a Russian mafia in London. Naomi Watts played the role of Anna, an English midwife and Viggo Matensen played the role of Nikolai, a member of the Mafia Gang. Vincent Cassel and Armin Muller-Tahl played the role of son and father respectively, who are the chiefs of the Mafia Family, “Vory V Zakone”. This movie is about a midwife, who finds out the people behind the rapping of a 14 year old kid, who dies in a hospital after delivering the baby where she is working as a midwife.

Tatiana, a fourteen year old Russian kid dies in a hospital at London after delivering a girl baby. Her diary falls in the hands of a Russian descendant midwife, Anna (Naomi Watts), which has clues written in Russian and a visiting card that leads to a Mafia head owned Restaurant. Anna visits the restaurant and meets the head of the Mafia, who promises to translate it for him. Later, Semyon (armin), the mafia chief, finds that the scripts written in the diary bears his son’s name Kirill (Vincent Cassel). In the mean time, Anna’s uncle translates the script written in the diary and comes to know that the kid was rapped. He conveys this translated story to Anna. The turn of events shows that, it’s Semyon(Armin Muller-Tahl)  and his son Kirill who have rapped the kid. After that, they forced her to work as a prostitute in their brothel. Whether Anna succeeds on her pursuit in bringing the accused to the light of judgement? Tells the rest of the story.

This movie has lot of scenes that is restricted to only few. Blood gore in throat slitting and violent scenes makes you to cover your eyes with your hands. The director tried to be more realistic which is appreciable yet it could have been avoided.

There are few scenes which stand out in the movie. They are too good and too perfect.

1. First look of the baby at the birth table, she is covered with blood and she breaths while the doctor is cutting her umbilical cord (I’m not sure it’s graphical).

2. The fight at a swimming pool, where Nikolai (Viggo Martensen) fights as Kirill. It was a nude fight includes violent scene but it is picture perfect realistic.

3. It’s not a scene; it’s the character of Viggo Martensen, who is unpredictable.

   Dialogues and screenplay are awfully slow; I’m not able come to a conclusion on either department. It is due to the reason that, I’m not sure whether it is dialogues that stop the movie’s pace or the screenplay that block’s the dialogues pace? Either way, it doesn’t matter when you have a picture perfect narration in hands.

   Naomi Watts agreed well with the boots of the midwife and played the role quite elegantly. Her care towards Tatiana’s baby and the way she expressed it, truly overwhelming. Viggo Martensen, what more would I say about his acting? Wonderfully drawn character and the way Viggo portrayed it was quite artistic. His conversation with Anna and his emotionless face were truly unfathomable. Kirill (Vincent Cassell) ranted all over the movie, he looked like a jerk than a son of a mafia chief, and such was his acting and sobered throughout the movie. Semyon(Armin Muller-Tahl), quite perfectly played the role and I wasn’t able to put him in the shoes of a rapist.

  Over all, a good movie with good dialogues, with slow screen plays, with better narration. Tatiana’s narration about her life at Russia, truly she won my heart. Tatiana’s Russian accent is still ringing in my ears “My name is Tatiana. My father died in the mines in my village, so he was already buried when he died. We were all buried there. Buried under the soil of Russia. That is why I left, to find a better life. “That sums up the story of a kid from an ill-ridden society.

Verdict: New entrant in my wallet of best talkies!