Eastern Promises



"Anna: So you've read the diary. How can you keep doing what you're doing?

Nikolai: I'm just the driver."

Eastern Promises is a 2007 crime drama by David Cronenberg. It received extremely positive reviews from critics, and is noted for its effective depiction of the Russian Mafia and Viggo Mortensen's performance as the mobster Nikolai Luzhin, which earned him a Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards.

The story revolves around Anna (Naomi Watts), a midwife at a London hospital, who discovers a diary belonging to a teenage girl who died during childbirth. Her efforts to translate the diary and thus find a family for the girl's baby end up embroiling her with a powerful figure in the Russian Mafia and the human trafficking and prostitution trade.

-

This film contains examples of:

 * Abusive Parents: Semyon makes no big secret of his disdain for his son and also kicks and beats him.
 * Affably Evil: Semyon seems like a friendly and completely benign old restaurant owner at first. He's not.
 * The Alcoholic: Kirill and Uncle Stepan.
 * Badass: Nikolai. Notable badassery includes the bathhouse scene and
 * Badass in A Nice Suit: Nikolai.
 * Big Bad: Semyon, the head of the family.
 * Chess Motifs:
 * Nikolai shares a last name, Luzhin, with a famous chessmaster in the Vladimir Nabokov novel The Defense.
 * Even Evil Has Standards:
 * Eye Scream:
 * Fake Nationality: The film stars Russians played by: A Danish-American (Nikolai's Viggo Mortensen), a Frenchman (Kirill's Vincent Cassell), a German (Semyon's Armin-Mueller Stahl), and a Pole (Stepan's Jerzy Skolimowski). Anna, an Englishwoman of Russian descent, is played by the British-Australian Naomi Watts.
 * Faking the Dead: Semyon orders Nikolai to take care of Stepan.
 * Fan Disservice: In classic David Cronenberg fashion, Nikolai's sex with the prostitute is intentionally made as unappealing as possible, with Kirill watching.
 * Fingore: Soyka's "processing".
 * Full Frontal Assault: Near the end, Nikolai is attacked by two knife-wielding mobsters in a bathhouse. And while Nikolai starts the scene in a robe, he loses it almost immediately. He's badly hurt in the battle, but you should see the other two guys.
 * Gayngster:
 * Grumpy Old Man: Anna's racist uncle Stepan. With a heavy dose of Jerk With a Heart of Gold.
 * Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today: Kirill insists on watching Nikolai have sex with one of the prostitutes at the brothel.
 * Hospital Hottie: Anna. She's nowhere near as in-your-face as many of the examples listed, but she is still played by Naomi Watts.
 * If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten: Nikolai is implied to have done a variety of nasty things to get where he is.
 * I Have Come Too Far: Related to the above trope.
 * Infant Immortality:
 * Law of Inverse Fertility: Tatiana
 * Lzherusskie: See Fake Nationality above.
 * The Mafiya: This is one of the few good looks at the Russian mob in Western cinema.
 * Minion With an F In Evil: Kirill. Heartbreaking rather than humorous. While he does partake in some rather nasty business it's implied that this, among other things, is what makes him such a wreck..
 * Mole in Charge:.
 * Multigenerational Household: Semyon's adult children and young grandchild live with him above the restaurant.
 * Pet the Dog: In addition to Nikolai helping Anna, there's.
 * Rape As Drama: It pretty much sets up the whole film.
 * Red Oni Blue Oni: Kirill and Nikolai, respectively.
 * The Reveal:
 * Reverse Mole:
 * Slashed Throat: A particularly graphic example about two-minutes into the film, in which the assailant uses a razor to saw through the victim's neck.
 * Tattooed Crook: Operates as a Chekhov's Gun for Nikolai. It says something that while taking a break from filming by kicking back at a bar, Viggo Mortensen accidentally scared several Russian immigrants into thinking he really was a member of the Vory V Zakone.
 * Thicker Than Water: Played straight by Semyon
 * Too Dumb to Live: Anna
 * Wham Line:
 * Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Pretty much sums up Semyon's attitude towards Kirill.