Eastern Promises

One of Cronenberg's subtlest, most insinuating pictures, and one of the highlights of the year so far.

Viggo Mortensen's performance is flat-out brilliant, and this relentlessly dramatic thriller represents a mid-life growth spurt for its director, David Cronenberg.

A superbly wrought yarn set in the milieu of first-generation Russian mobsters in London that is simultaneously tough-minded and compassionate about the human condition, Eastern Promises instantly takes its place among David Cronenberg's very best films.

In Eastern Promises, shot to envelop by the great Peter Suschitzky, Cronenberg brings us face to face with the horror of self.

A thoroughly entertaining film by a director at the height of his ability.

It's an academic meditation in underworld-thriller drag -- a movie that looks about as close to a straight-ahead, down-and-dirty genre entertainment as anything the director has made since his exploding-head horror days.

Eastern Promises is a jumbled string of mob-related clichés that mesh into something that’s derivative and at times uninteresting.

a David Cronenberg masterpiece! Tough, blank and honest it gives the audience a good ( and pretty frightening) insight into the Russian Mafia, merciless and brutal crme gang. Going home after watching the movie one feels happy that it was just a movie.....

Imported rating from tomato rotten site but I lost my review as Thai language became unreadable text. Some of the movies I totally forgot the story. This is why I comment this. I need to comment this because it won't record my watched-list if I just rate.

Un petit coin de mafia russe en Angleterre, le quotidien des affaires en cours en quelque sorte, avec le patron inflexible, le fiston (alcoolique) qui fait des conneries et ce chauffeur discret mais besogneux… (ses tatouages parlent pour lui). Une certaine ambiance et une histoire qui tient la rampe assurément. Mortensen et Cassel sont excellents comme l’ensemble des acteurs d’ailleurs. Hélas, la mise en scène est molle, le film est très lent et ce n’est pas quelqu’ultra violence ici ou là (trop rare de toute façon) qui peut remonter la tension très basse, ni la musique grinçante et désagréable. On a l’impression de regarder un téléfilm en fait. Plutôt dommage pour un film de David Kronenbourg qui a décidément beaucoup baissé.

The best way to describe Eastern Promises is a boring bloody mess that is completely anti dramatic. A movie that piles cliché after cliché while tries to hide its lack of originality with gruesome violence.

How can this movie get such a high rating ? It was awful, unbearable to watch. The acting was absolutely appalling, I cannot believe that good actors such as Mortensen and Cassel would agree to be a part of this ridiculous mess. The opening scene was so bad, you know the film can only get worse if it starts out bad. Absolutely horrible.