David Cronenberg has teamed up with Viggo Mortensen once again, and deliver both intensity and suspense in his thriller ‘Eastern Promises’. The film centers around the vory v zakone (Thieves in law), another name for the russian mafia. Naomi Watts plays the midwife Anna Khitrova at a hospital in London, who deliver a baby girl while the mother dies in birth. The dead mother is only fourteen years of age, and has kept a diary -which Anna decides to get translated. After a romance breakup, she lives with her mother and stepfather Stephan (Jerzy Skolimowski), a former russian. He declines to translate the diary, and Anna is forced to look elsewhere. Stephan’s role is simply comic relief now and then, as well as portaying the russian stereotypical racism. After some time, his role is downplayed to the degree that he simply vanishes from the movie.

Anna seeks to get the diary translated in a neighboring restaurant, owned by the both sinister and charismatic Seymon, who’s willing to get the job done. Rather oddly, he insists on getting the original diary. He’s the local boss of the vory v zakone, and his ruthless and insecure son Kirill (masterly played by Vincent Cassel) takes up the role as the villain in the diary. Anna becomes aware that the diary is evidence of forced prostitution and rape, and that the russians will stop at nothing to claim it.

Meanwhile, a strange relationship evolves between Anna and the russian’s henchman Nikolai. He’s the driver, and sometimes he fends her against his master’s wrath, while other times enforces it. He’s clearly interested in Anna, but at the same time he needs to be loyal to his bosses.

Nikolai and Kirill is responsible for the murder of a captain in the organization. This doesn’t go down well with his chechnyan brothers, who murder their way to their brother’s killers. Soon the head of the mob, Seymon. Will he have to deliver his own son to the chechnyans? And what about Nikolai, who’s rising in the ranks?

The relationships between fathers, sons and family are key elements. The only character that stands alone are Nikolai – an outsider in a world bonded by blood. Viggo Mortensen does a great job in this film, so does the rest of the ensemble. Naomi Watts has a somewhat limiting character, but does whatever is needed to make us empathize. It’s involving and exciting, and never boring.

The movie is graphical. Cutting throats seems to be the preferred assassination method within the mob, with the mandatory removal of teeth and fingers afterwards. It’s all good in my book, you need some gory stuff to make it believable. I disgust editing for commercial purposes, films should not portray anything less graphical than reality. If it fails to do so, you end up with a wrong perception of what really happens. In many thrillers, you root for the villains, mostly because their actions are hidden or cut out. In this regard, cronenberg has made a worthwhile picture, with a clever twist at the end. 8/10