Movie Review for Eastern Promises

Summary: The mysterious and ruthless Nikolai is tied to one of London's most notorious organized crime families. His carefully maintained existence is jarred when he crosses paths with Anna, an innocent midwife trying to right a wrong, who accidentally uncovers potential evidence against the family. Now Nikolai must put into motion a harrowing chain of murder, deceit, and retribution.

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Rebecca Murray of About.com (7/0)
            Mortensen and Watts shine and their terrific performances elevate Eastern Promises into a compell...

By Brian Juergens of AfterElton.com (7/0)
            Brutal, but not cruel.

By Brian Webster of Apollo Guide (7/0)
            Taught, smart and brutal, without a single extraneous moment, this is a breathtakingly powerful m...

By Ty Burr of Boston Globe (7/0)
            ...Viggo Mortensen finally comes of age as an actor and a movie star.

By Fred Topel of Can Magazine (7/0)
            I didn't make a whole lot of notes during Eastern Promises because there wasn't a whole lot to cr...

By Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times (7/0)
            ...no ordinary crime thriller...

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune (7/0)
            ...an unusually strong crime thriller...

By Peter Rainer of Christian Science Monitor (7/0)
            David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises plays like a companion piece to his overrated A History of Vi...

By Jules Brenner of Cinema Signals (7/0)
            I see award nominations all over the place here--it is simply a crackling arthouse of talent in e...

By Joshua Tyler of CinemaBlend.com (7/0)
            Preview and images.

By Cole Smithey of ColeSmithey.com (7/0)
            "Eastern Promises" is an exceptionally well-crafted thriller that draws its audience through a th...

By Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid (7/0)
            What makes it great is that it's a David Cronenberg movie; he tells a compelling story, filled wi...

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Edward Douglas of ComingSoon.net (7/0)
            While this isn't a terrible movie, compared to A History of Violence or any of Cronenberg's earli...

By Chris Vognar of Dallas Morning News (7/0)
            The film's genius performance belongs to the venerable Armin Mueller-Stahl, who plays the family ...

By Lisa Kennedy of Denver Post (7/0)
            ...Eastern Promises is as honorable an entertainment as it is a humbling work of art.

By Alex Markerson of E! Online (7/0)
            ...a meandering amalgam of trite mysteries and measured, smoldering confrontations.

By Brian Orndorf of eFilmCritic.com (7/0)
            Eastern Promises isn't so much a motion picture as it is a master class in performance nuance and...

By Peter Sobczynski of eFilmCritic.com (7/0)
            The kind of dark, disturbing and deeply fascinating work that jolts you while you are watching it...

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Emanuel Levy of EmanuelLevy.Com (7/0)
            Cronenberg is on a roll: Though it lacks the epic scale and visual grandeur of The Godfather, new...

By Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly (7/0)
            Eastern Promises is a decent night out, but in delivering ''more'' than it promises, it also ...

By Anton Bitel of Eye for Film (7/0)
            By most standards, this would count as a moody and sophisticated thriller - but it just does not ...

By Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central (7/0)
            London as a murky wood filthy with wolves.

By Doris Toumarkine of Film Journal International (7/0)
            Cronenberg does it again%u2014a fact that will please most savvy filmgoers with strong stomachs.

By Chris Cabin of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            Cronenberg, a world-class provocateur, reminds us that the London streets still aren't safe and t...

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Victoria Alexander of FilmsInReview.com (7/0)
            Ultra-violence, forced prostitution, and a bloody nude killing spree in a Russian steam bath.

By MaryAnn Johanson of Flick Filosopher (7/0)
            Here we have somber reflection, the lurking gray peril of an urban underbelly, shifting shifty gl...

By Rob Vaux of Flipside Movie Emporium (7/0)
            A fascinating entry into a little-understood subculture.

By Peter Canavese of Groucho Reviews (7/0)
            Eastern Promises' unusually ambiguous character study makes for a different kind of crime drama, ...

By Sura Wood of Hollywood Reporter (7/0)
            Cronenberg's latest is as engrossing as it is creepy.

By Staci Layne Wilson of Horror.com (7/0)
            David Cronenberg, the so-called 'King of Venereal Horror', has managed to subversively reinvent h...

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Bruce Westbrook of Houston Chronicle (7/0)
            What it's really about, more than sensitivity for displaced people or social analyses, is violenc...

By Stax of IGN Movies (7/0)
            Eastern Promises is a compelling drama about the collision of conscience and criminality. Chalk u...

By Bruce Kirkland of Jam! Movies (7/0)
            Like A History of Violence, David Cronenberg's brilliant new film goes far beyond its thriller ge...

By Andrea Chase of Killer Movie Reviews (7/0)
            Cronenberg here is at his twisted, brilliant best

By Beth Accomando of KPBS.org (7/0)
            Eastern Promises reveals yet again what a master craftsman and artist Cronenberg is. His film is ...

By Nick Schager of Lessons of Darkness (7/0)
            Its subtextual currents are more compelling than the actual narrative itself, which never wholly ...

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Andy Klein of Los Angeles CityBeat (7/0)
            ... has its moments of hideous violence and a few touches of Cronenberg's disgust with human fles...

By Glenn Whipp of Los Angeles Daily News (7/0)
            While the film falls short of Cronenberg's best, it still boasts Mortensen's authoritative acting...

By Carina Chocano of Los Angeles Times (7/0)
            Expertly realized and gunmetal slick...

By Carina Chocano of Los Angeles Times (7/0)
            Expertly realized and gunmetal slick, Eastern Promises whirs along with perfect efficiency, but d...

By Pete Hammond of Maxim (7/0)
            In the end 'Eastern' promises - and delivers - an intelligent film full of it's own brand of soun...

By Geoff Berkshire of Metromix.com (7/0)
            An unforgettable bathhouse brawl immediately takes a place among Cronenberg's best and most outra...

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Matt Pais of Metromix.com (7/0)
            Significant tension keeps a minimal plot on ice, with changes that are small but precise, like a ...

By Colin Covert of Minneapolis Star Tribune (7/0)
            It's a mouthful of blood with a vodka chaser.

By Ron Wilkinson of Monsters and Critics (7/0)
            A mysterious crime family with smoldering secrets plays with sharp objects off the slimy backwate...

By Kevin N. Laforest of Montreal Film Journal (7/0)
            Cronenberg's Christmas flick is intensely thought-provoking and affecting.

By Kurt Loder of MTV (7/0)
            Cronenberg's film has a distinctive somber sheen and startling jolts of perversity, and it could ...

By Jack Mathews of New York Daily News (7/0)
            Eastern Promises is the first must-see adult film of the young fall.

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By David Edelstein of New York Magazine (7/0)
            Eastern Promises is finally conventional, even sentimental.

By Lou Lumenick of New York Post (7/0)
            ...this is Mortensen's best and richest performance, worthy of serious awards consideration.'<

By Armond White of New York Press (7/0)
            Eastern Promises is a pretty hollow viewing experience. It deals with the ugly life choices facin...

By A. O. Scott of New York Times (7/0)
            ...an intriguing, not always stable mixture of moods and attitudes.

By Anthony Lane of New Yorker (7/0)
            You walk out of Eastern Promises feeling spooked and sullied, as if waking from a noisome dream. ...

By Jan Stuart of Newsday (7/0)
            Whether in cloaked repose or naked defense, Mortensen dares you to take your eyes off of him.

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (7/0)
            A riveting drama...it's only by comparison to Cronenberg's best that it comes up slightly short.

By Keith Phipps of Onion AV Club (7/0)
            An engrossing, politically conscious thriller with superior acting that doesn't reveal how little...

By Jeanne Aufmuth of Palo Alto Weekly (7/0)
            Viggo Mortensen chews it up and spits it out as the corrupt centerpiece of maverick director Davi...

By Cynthia Fuchs of PopMatters (7/0)
            Eastern Promises crosses up and recombines stories of parents and children, even violence and his...

By David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews (7/0)
            ...absolutely compelling...

By Timothy Knight of Reel.com (7/0)
            This intermittently riveting and atmospheric film nevertheless ends on such a bewilderingly abrup...

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Robin Clifford of Reeling Reviews (7/0)
            Eastern Promises is a routine crime drama that tries to have Anna’s humanitarian mission give it ...

By Jeffrey Chen of ReelTalk Movie Reviews (7/0)
            As Cronenberg's primary vehicle, Mortensen makes the show his own.

By James Berardinelli of ReelViews (7/0)
            Perhaps the director set the bar so high with A History of Violence that there was no way he coul...

By Peter Travers of Rolling Stone (7/0)
            How like David Cronenberg -- the master of body horror as a path to the soul -- to begin his mesm...

By Alex Vo of Rotten Tomatoes (7/0)
            Oh, Canada! RT Prepares for Toronto Film Fest

By David Elliott of San Diego Union-Tribune (7/0)
            As steeped in Russian flavors as a hot samovar, this fast, compelling story is also oddly Dickens...

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Mick LaSalle of San Francisco Chronicle (7/0)
            ...tightly plotted and economically told film.

By Mick LaSalle of San Francisco Chronicle (7/0)
            This is Mortensen and Cronenberg's second collaboration -- the first was A History of Violence --...

By Gina Carbone of Seacoast Newspapers (NH/Maine) (7/0)
            For all his three-dimensional humanism, it's clear Cronenberg likes his men to get their hands di...

By Sean Axmaker of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (7/0)
            The restraint of both director and actor makes this steely gangster drama reverberate long after ...

By Rich Cline of Shadows on the Wall (7/0)
            Features strikingly good performances, as well as a realistic vision of London's darker, wetter c...

By Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine (7/0)
            Eastern Promises is a straighter version of Inland Empire, which is not to say that it isn't tota...

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Dustin Putman of TheMovieBoy.com (7/0)
            An ultimately satisfying venture with a few spot-on acting turns, but it is a tad too ordinary fo...

By Tony Medley of Tolucan Times (7/0)
            ...a brilliantly acted and directed film that keeps you on the edge of your seat, marred only by ...

By Geoff Pevere of Toronto Star (7/0)
            Menacingly brilliant.

By Brian Tallerico of UGO (7/0)
            Love him or hate him, no one makes movies quite like David Cronenberg, a man who can take an othe...

By Claudia Puig of USA Today (7/0)
            ...Eastern Promises has a compelling story and strong performances to back up what may seem e...

By Todd McCarthy of Variety (7/0)
            Eastern Promises instantly takes its place among David Cronenberg's very best films.

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By J. Hoberman of Village Voice (7/0)
            I've said it before and hope to again: David Cronenberg is the most provocative, original, and co...

By Desson Thomson of Washington Post (7/0)
            Eastern Promises, a chilly character thriller set in the Russian underworld of London, has elemen...

By Prairie Miller of WBAI Web Radio (7/0)
            Cronenberg's dramatic scrutiny of the flourishing post-Soviet Russian mob phenomenon as manifeste...

By John Beifuss of Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            As exactingly wrought as an anatomical diagram or one of Mortensen's symbolic tattoos, 'Eastern P...

By Kevin Courrier of Boxoffice Magazine (6/1) No reference
            Offers mostly empty promises.

By Jonathan Rosenbaum of Chicago Reader (6/1) No reference
            David Cronenberg's follow-up to A History of Violence lacks the theoretical dimension of its pred...

                         Reviews of Eastern Promises
By Pete Vonder Haar of Film Threat (6/1) No reference
            Mueller-Stahl - equal parts grandfatherly and malevolent - conveys more menace in an offhand rema...

By Robert W. Butler of Kansas City Star (3/4) No reference
            Mortensen’s work is so good that you’ll want to go back and see Eastern Promises a second time ju...

By Stephen Whitty of Newark Star-Ledger (6/1) No reference
            [Cronenberg's] most straightforward and accessible movie since The Fly.

By Jon Popick of Planet Sick-Boy (3/4) No reference
            One of the best taut thrillers you'll see in 2007.

By Mary F. Pols of Contra Costa Times (6/1) Not Reachable
            Eastern Promises isn't particularly long, but it feels full -- full of tension and excitement and...

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