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**jason voorhees** · 15-11-2008, 03:57

Eastern Promises

Eastern Promises - 2007
Directed by - The New Flesh
**

The problem with The Godfather & Chinatown, is that they took 99% of what crime films could be about, or could be shot as. For instance, the cinematography in Godfather was the Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, and the Last Supper rolled all into one. Sure, you can shoot great films outside, but there will never be interiors shot as well as that film. Ever. It will never happen. The apex has been reached, and we're living in postmodernism until the world ends and all of this art is wiped out and in 15,356,656,768 years they discover a new form of art.

And in any crime film, having a patriarch petting a cat or sipping some borscht or pontificating about the meaning of life with a dark interior with some low-lit lights in the background and deep reds and blacks will only have the viewer waiting for when Don Corleone is about to show up in his tux.

And with Chinatown, as with any movie this side of having the villain kidnap babies to drink their blood, you will not be able to top the infamnia that the main villain committed. For the rest of eternity, the audience is held captive to "been there, done that" plot twist or plot advancement.

Which brings me to Eastern Promises, a film with such great camerawork, acting, and directing, but something that ultimately ends up like so many other films have ended up, and ultimately - as powerful as it is watching it, relies on it's ultraviolence and shock value to bring an "authenticity" that the rest of the film simply does not have.

Viggo and Naomi are obviously great, and the film only barely escapes the Nazi WWII/Roman Sword and Sandal accent trap, in which lazy audiences who are turned off by subtitles are treated to English being spoken with both accents and the assumption that they are in fact speaking in their foreign tongue - which in turn leads to a greater sense of disbelief as it's challenging to understand what the characters are saying in an accent that is slightly incoherent, and since they would be able to understand each other perfect, one wonders what the point is to begin with.

Sure there's arm breaking and eye gouging and ass-crack showing karate kicks and ball juggling and dick twirling fight scenes, but it doesn't make the film any more important or necessary.

Incredibly watchable, but leaving me with a bad aftertaste.

(edit - Really bad aftertaste, as I'm doing an unprecedented downgrade. I really hate this screenwriter. I hate Dirty Pretty things, and I fucking hate Love Actually. Not that he had anything to do with Love Actually, but he makes the Love Actually of crime movies. Mawkish, Pretentious, Corn Syrupy, and Heavy Handed.)

**Heliotrope** · 25-11-2008, 17:53

Eastern Promises

I just saw this, too. HBO, eh? My problem with it was that you had to suspend disbelief way too much, because so many things just seemed unlikely:
*Why is Naomi Watts playing amateur detective instead of the police being involved?
*Wouldn't a child protection agency be involved with the baby? (And who couldn't see where she ends up?)
*If I were in a steam room when a naked knife fight broke out, I'd probably dash out as soon as I unobtrusively could, but two guys who are there stay put.
*That scene when the baby is removed from the hospital is just like the ones in TV cop shows where the would-be murderer gets all talky, conveniently allowing the cops to catch up and prevent it.

It seemed to me like the whole point was the horrific death scenes and one twist.

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Eastern Promises

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