Eastern Promises (2007)
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Reviews Counted: 194
Fresh: 173 | Rotten: 21
David Cronenberg triumphs again, showcasing the Viggo Mortensen's onscreen prowess in a daring performance. Bearing the trademarks of psychological drama and gritty violence, Eastern Promises is a very compelling crime story.
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Critic Reviews: 40
Fresh: 35 | Rotten: 5
David Cronenberg triumphs again, showcasing the Viggo Mortensen's onscreen prowess in a daring performance. Bearing the trademarks of psychological drama and gritty violence, Eastern Promises is a very compelling crime story.
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Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 127,982
Movie Info
Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Vincent Cassel star in this David Cronenberg's thriller concerning a London midwife who unwittingly stumbles into a clandestine Russian sex trafficking ring. An unidentified Russian teen has been rushed to a London hospital after going into labor. Though midwife Anna Khitrova (Watts) does manage to deliver a healthy baby girl, the newborn's mother dies tragically during delivery. But the deceased mother's secrets did not die with her,
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Cast
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Viggo Mortensen
Nikolai Luzhin -
Naomi Watts
Anna Khitrova -
Vincent Cassel
Kirill -
Armin Mueller-Stahl
Semyon -
Sinead Cusack
Helen -
Donald Sumpter
Yuri -
Josef Altin
Ekrem -
Mina E. Mina
Azim -
Aleksandar Mikic
Soyka -
Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse
Tatiana -
Lalita Ahmed
Customer -
Buddy Uzzaman
Chemist -
Dana Smith Croll
Nurse -
Raza Jaffrey
Doctor Aziz -
Jerzy Skolimowski
Stepan -
Tatiana Maslany
Tatiana's Voice -
Shannon-Fleur Roux
Maria -
Lillibet Langley
Violin Girl -
Mia Soterious
Azim's Wife -
Rad Kaim
Head Waiter -
Rhodri Miles
Senior Officer -
Tereza Srbova
Kirilenko -
Elisa Lasowski
Prostitute -
Christina Catalina
Prostitute -
Alice Henley
Prostitute -
Faton Gerbeshi
Pimp -
David Papava
Chechen -
Tamer Hassan
Chechen -
Gergo Danka
Junior Waiter -
Michael Sarne
Valery -
Boris Isarov
Russian Boss -
Yuri Klimov
Russian Boss -
Andrzej Borkowski
The Gypsy -
Olegario Fedoro
Tattooist
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Eastern Promises Trailer & Photos
All Critics (194) | Top Critics (40) | Fresh (173) | Rotten (21) | DVD (22)
Slightly hesitant, slightly undercharacterised and gently compromising, hybrid: an oddly diplomatic, if often brutal, dip into the hellish demi-mondes lurking behind bouncer-guarded London doorways.
Top CriticIt's just too bad Eastern Promises, on the whole, promises more than it delivers.
Here is an excellent crime thriller made with grown-ups in mind.
...manages to blend the clashing of cultures, family resentment, ugly heritage and the unlikely promise of new life without going in circles.
Eastern Promises is a straightforward, straight-up Russian gangster movie whose primary achievement is making the Russian gangster underworld feel exotic and menacing.
...Eastern Promises is as honorable an entertainment as it is a humbling work of art.
Quite possibly the best film of the year, it is to be seen at all costs.
David Cronenberg's spin on "The Departed," in which lawmen and the lawless were similarly tested within an ethnic mafia's ranks. But where that became an overwrought bloodbath, "Promises" maintained a vicious focus on mob malevolence and personal peril.
"It starts very well, and we're immediately drawn into this world of dead pregnant teens, the Russian mob, the hermeneutics of tattoos and the archetypal disappointment of a father with his son."
Clearly a companion piece to (and just as good as, if not better than) 2005's fantastic A History of Violence, Eastern Promises is all about blood, in the familial as well as the literal sense.
Even if the frequently low-key plot suffers from the occasional sleepy stretch, Mortensen turns in a magnificent performance.
Late-period Cronenberg masterpiece
David Cronenberg is a director who sets out to bring life (and death) back to violence. In Eastern Promises he does just that. It is a movie that will make audiences squirm and look away.
Mortensen is very convincing as Nikolai, and his Russian accent is impeccable.
Un ejemplo de cine negro contemporáneo realizado y narrado con gran precisión. Excelente elenco donde se destaca la notable labor de Viggo Mortensen.
Eastern Promises has a lot going for it, which makes it all the more disappointing when the story takes a fatal turn towards the end.
This is my favorite David Cronenberg film to date.
...a Godfather for a new culture and era.
Poderia perfeitamente ter se revelado um thriller absolutamente convencional caso não tivesse, a seu favor, dois elementos importantíssimos: a direção segura e intrigante de David Cronenberg e, claro, a performance hipnótica de Viggo Mortensen.
Despite Viggo's total gorgeousness, a nude fight-for-his-life in a steam room has all the titillation of a butcher throwing down a slab of meat.
David Cronenberg proves he doesn't have to use violence to tell a good story.
If you're a fan of crime flicks, Viggo Mortensen or director David Cronenberg, this movie is sure to give you what you want.
Surprising and rather suspenseful crime drama and the perfect follow-up from the director who composes a pleasing violent moral duality tale...
There seems to be no point to it all other than to craft an unsettling motion picture with some grisly close ups of throats being slit.
Though not as subtle, complex, or personal as History of Violence, Cronenberg's new film is a grim, taut, well-crafted crimer about the Russian mafia in London, as close to a genre picture as helmer has ever done.
Barbershop throat slitting, nude macho wrestling and eye gouging in a bathhouse, and far too willing underage Ukrainian sex slaves. A double vodka, please.
Audience Reviews for Eastern Promises
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Semyon: [after rapping on a body stored in a freezer] Do you have hair dryer?
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- Nikolai Luzhin: Sometimes, if things are closed, you just, open them up.
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- Nikolai Luzhin: I can't become king if someone else already sits on the throne.
Discussion Forum
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Latest News on Eastern Promises
December 14, 2012:
David Cronenberg Talks Canceled ProjectsLooking back on the "Eastern Promises" sequel and the "sidebar" to "The Fly" that might have been.
November 19, 2011:
Fox Passes on David Cronenberg's The Fly SequelAnd in other Cronenberg sequel news, Viggo Mortensen is still attached to "Eastern Promises 2."
April 3, 2009:
Weekly Ketchup: Sony announces Men in Black IIIRight smack in the middle of this week was April Fool's Day, so some stories this week had to be...
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Featured
Movie: ID: 770671901 Title: Eastern Promises Release Date: 2007-09-21 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 4 Status: 1
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Foreign Titles
- Eastern Promises (Tödliche Versprechen) (DE)
- Les Promesses de l'ombre (FR)
