Eastern Promises R

Every sin leaves a mark.
Eastern Promises
409K ratings
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Format:  DVD
item number:  F5SF
on most orders of $75+
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DVD Details

  • Rated: R
  • Run Time: 1 hours, 41 minutes
  • Video: Color
  • Encoding: Region 1 (USA & Canada)
  • Released: December 26, 2007
  • Originally Released: 2007
  • Label: Focus Features

Performers, Cast and Crew:

Starring &
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Directed by
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Director of Photography:

Entertainment Reviews:

Certified Fresh89%

TOMATOMETER
Total Count: 200

Upright83%

AUDIENCE SCORE
User Ratings: 149,169
4 stars out of 5 -- The excellent Mortensen is utterly mesmeric....A darkly unforgettable crime thriller...
Ultimate DVD
Dec 1, 2007
Such are the actual subtleties of Mortensen's performance - the odd sardonic smile; the slight tightening of a look - you're aware, from the off, that what he is on the outside might not have anything to do with what he is on the inside. Full Review
The Spectator
Aug 22, 2018
Although relentlessly gripping, the film is more interesting than it is satisfying, let down by the script. Full Review
Financial Times
Oct 26, 2007
The continuity between EASTERN PROMISES and Cronenberg's early works is maintained through two themes: violence and the body. The violence in EASTERN PROMISES is at times breathtakingly brutal...
Sight and Sound
Nov 1, 2007
Despite the star presence of Viggo Mortensen, David Cronenberg's violent film about the Russian Mafia in London is a disappointment. Full Review
Daily Telegraph (UK)
Oct 26, 2007
Rating: B- -- 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. Full Review
I.E. Weekly
Feb 22, 2008
Knight throws in a twist that scrambles the movie's moral compass so late in the game, so perfunctorily and so pointlessly, as to render any final reckoning incoherent. Full Review
Stop Smiling
Aug 24, 2017

Product Description:

David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen follow up 2005's A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE with another joint effort in EASTERN PROMISES. The film takes place in rainswept London, with Mortensen effortlessly inhabiting the role of a chauffeur (named Nikolai) for the Russian Mafia. The stoic Nikolai works for restaurant owner and powerful Mafia kingpin Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and his out-of-control son Kirill (Vincent Cassel). Cronenberg adds a few generous splashes of blood-red to his otherwise deeply grey cinematic palette as the movie begins, then allows his central storyline to unfold. Midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) comes crashing into Nikolai's life after discovering the diary of a young Russian woman who dies while giving birth, and her dealings with Semyon, and a subsequent translation of the diary, provide some horrific discoveries. Anna soon finds herself floundering in an alien world full of brutal and bloody violence, and it's not long before her own life hangs perilously in the balance.

Fans of A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE will find much to enjoy here, as will longstanding Cronenberg fans who have stuck with the director since his early low-budget horror days. Plenty of themes, ideas, and obsessions that have run right through the director's body of work are present, and he appears to have found a very effective muse in Mortensen. The chief talking points of the film will almost certainly revolve around Mortensen's extended nude sequence and the graphic killings and fight sequences, but EASTERN PROMISES is a weighty piece of work that will undoubtedly attract fans of intelligent, well-crafted thrillers.

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Product Info

  • UPC: 065935811800
  • Shipping Weight: 0.25/lbs (approx)
  • International Shipping: 1 item

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