Eastern Promises




The mysterious and charismatic Russian-born Nikolai Luzhin is a driver for one of London's most notorious organized crime families of Eastern European origin. The family itself is part of the Vory V Zakone criminal brotherhood. Headed by Semyon, whose courtly charm as the welcoming proprietor of the plush Trans-Siberian restaurant impeccably masks a cold and brutal core, the family's fortunes are tested by Semyon's volatile son and enforcer, Kirill, who is more tightly bound to Nikolai than to his own father. But Nikolai's carefully maintained existence is jarred once he crosses paths at Christmastime with Anna Khitrova, a midwife at a North London hospital. Anna is deeply affected by the desperate situation of a young teenager who dies while giving birth to a baby. Anna resolves to try to trace the baby's lineage and relatives. The girl's personal diary also survives her; it is written in Russian, and Anna seeks answers in it. Anna's mother Helen does not discourage her, but Anna's irascible Russian-born uncle Stepan urges caution. He is right to do so; by delving into the diary, Anna has accidentally unleashed the full fury of the Vory. With Semyon and Kirill closing ranks and Anna pressing her inquiries, Nikolai unexpectedly finds his loyalties divided. The family tightens its grip on him; who can, or should, he trust? Several lives - including his own - hang in the balance as a harrowing chain of murder, deceit, and retribution reverberates through the darkest corners of both the family and London itself.


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NEWSWEEK - Ramin Setoodeh September 10, 2007 In a David Cronenberg movie, people usually talk about the violence, such as in, well, "A History of Violence." That probably won't be true with his new film, "Eastern Promises." It's a thriller starring Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai, a taciturn chauffeur for a family of Russian mobsters living in London. The biggest scene takes place in a steam room. Nikolai is sitting there in a towel, taking a peaceful shvitz, when two rival mobsters lumber in and attack him. It's incredibly violent, of course, but the really shocking thing is that Mortensen plays the whole four-minute fight completely naked. It's quite possibly the longest male nude scene ever in a mainstream Hollywood film. "In this age of screen grabs, I realize people are going to obsess about it," Mortensen says. "But it's not gratuitous." But wasn't he even a little nervous about exposing himself like that? "That's the advantage of working with a real actor as opposed to a star," says Cronenberg, who took two entire days to shoot the scene. "We weren't worried about you seeing his balls." More likely, Viggo was worried about you thinking about him as Aragorn for the rest of his career. Ever notice how when an actor really wants to move beyond a supersuccessful role, he drops trou? It's the Daniel Radcliffe School of I'm Not Harry Potter Anymore! In any event, Mortensen's fans don't care about his motivation. "I don't want to give you the impression that we're all sex-crazed middle-aged women," says Lynn Gibson, who runs the Viggophile.net fan site. "But we are quite looking forward to it."

LOS ANGELES TIMES By Gina Piccalo Los Angeles Times Staff Writer September 11, 2007 David Cronenberg put Viggo Mortensen through the wringer once. Now the actor's back for more. As Viggo Mortensen and director David Cronenberg plotted the unforgettable bathhouse knife fight in their new crime thriller, "Eastern Promises," Cronenberg told the actor he wanted realism and "body-ness." The director wanted to challenge his audience to really experience the intimacy of such violence. "Well, it's obvious," Mortensen told him, "I have to play this naked." Boy does he. And Cronenberg captures every clammy square inch of Mortensen's well-toned flesh as it's pummeled and slashed and slammed into the unforgiving bathhouse tiles by two clothed real-life professional fighters, turning an otherwise excruciating four minutes of film into a quintessential Cronenberg statement. "Eastern Promises," a Focus Features release opening Friday in L.A. and in 1,500 theaters nationwide on Sept. 21, explores the fine line between fragility and brutality, humanity and horror in the lives of three Londoners: Russian mob driver and sometime "fixer" Nikolai Luzhin (Mortensen); London midwife Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), who is striving to unite an orphaned baby with her Russian family; and mob boss Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), who hides his sex slavery trade behind the guise of a grandfatherly restaurateur. The film is Cronenberg's first collaboration with Mortensen since their 2005 Oscar-nominated "A History of Violence," a critical and commercial hit that fans of Cronenberg's previous work -- "Dead Ringers," "Naked Lunch" and "The Fly," among them -- considered surprisingly accessible. It's also a tough act to follow. So far, reviews have been strong, praising Mortensen's complete immersion in the role -- adapting his body language and perfecting the accent -- calling the performance "brilliant," and even "Oscar-caliber." Indeed, Focus Features' decision to open the film in mid-September, traditionally a dead period for serious films, could give "Eastern Promises" a jump on the glut of performance-heavy fare coming in October. And despite its disturbing subject matter and memorable fight scene, the film could prove even more commercial than "A History of Violence." It has just three scenes of violence. But the director gives each throat-slice, each blood pool a natural, three-dimensional effect. "I have a very existential approach to the human body," Cronenberg said. "I take bodies seriously, [as if] I'm actually photographing the essence of this person." "Unless you have a story this profound, it doesn't matter how good anything looks," added Mortensen. "Then you just get an exercise in brutality. That's what I like about his films. It's like real life." Mortensen is only the second actor in Cronenberg's 30-odd-year career to collaborate twice with the director. (Jeremy Irons is the other, having starred as twin gynecologists in 1988's "Dead Ringers" and as French diplomat Rene Gallimard in 1993's "M. Butterfly.") The affinity between Mortensen and Cronenberg was evident as the two friends deconstructed the "Eastern Promises" naked fight scene recently, sitting opposite each other in the director's fashionable Beverly Hills hotel room, volleying tongue-in-cheek gibes, often finishing each other's thoughts. Still, Cronenberg pointed out that it took some convincing to get Mortensen to agree to the part of Nikolai. "He plays hard to get," the director said. "I'm always very reticent until I have a handle on it," Mortensen said. "I wanted to make sure I had the proper time to prepare." Mortensen researches his characters exhaustively. To understand mobster turned small-town family man Joey in "A History of Violence," he took a road trip through the Midwest and spent time recording costar Maria Bello's uncle, a Philadelphia native, to nail his accent. for "Eastern Promises," Mortensen set out alone for Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Ural Mountain region of Siberia, spending weeks driving around without a translator. (The actor speaks Danish and Spanish fluently and can get by in four other languages.) Mortensen studied the gangs of the vory v zakone (thieves in law). He read books on Russian prison culture and the importance of prison tattoos as criminal r貵m豮 He perfected his character's Siberian accent and learned lines in Russian, Ukrainian and English. During filming, he used worry beads made in prison from melted-down plastic cigarette lighters and decorated his trailer with copies of Russian icons. Mortensen's work ultimately became the foundation for the role, prompting some changes in the script and even guiding Cronenberg's direction. The actor credits Cronenberg with granting him the creative freedom to push his characters into surprising places. Cronenberg said he couldn't work any other way. "I really invented myself as a director," Cronenberg said. "A lot of directors are very territorial and they don't really want to hear anything from other people, especially actors." "They don't want to admit they don't know something," Mortensen said. "It's a matter of control and fear," Cronenberg concluded. Instead, he asks actors to "come play in my sandbox." "Once you accept that childlike-ness," he said, "everything else becomes more clear." Mortensen's 360-degree nudity in the fight scene is a prime example of how their relationship aided the film. Despite its complexity -- hand-to-hand combat among three guys in a compact and very slippery space -- they rehearsed only a few hours and then captured the fight in just two days. "I knew I was in good hands as far as the director went," Mortensen said. "It wasn't an exploitation. . . . After that fight, my character knows everything's different. There wasn't any other way to do it. So let's get on with it. The sooner we got it over with, the quicker I could heal." "The makeup guy would say, 'Have you seen how swollen Viggo's knees are?' " added Cronenberg. "I said, 'No. Don't tell me that.' " Recalling his vigorous and bruising staircase sex scene in "A History of Violence," Mortensen quipped, "It's revenge for Maria Bello."

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Viggo nailed it once again. From trhe accent to the facial expressions - he really should be nominated for the Academy.

At some point, it had me 'eughh-ing' then I covered my eyes, then at some point it had be clapping.

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Originally Posted by Shnicky (View Post) His performance was jsut flawless.

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