Broken Promises

Am I the only one who has seen David Cronenberg's new film, Eastern Promises, and thought, um, that was okay?

I was expecting Eastern Promises to be a great film, having been stunned into awestruck silence by The History of Violence. And any film that includes a four-minute fight sequence with a buck-naked Viggo Mortensen battling two suited thugs in a shower room should be, at the very least, really good.

But Eastern Promises is only good. The script, penned by Steven Knight who wrote 2002's Dirty Pretty Things teeters precariously close to cliche with its cast of drunken Russian mobsters, a naive and gorgeous blond and a bad guy who might just have a heart of gold. Since there is not any exploration of the interiors of these characters, I left the theatre feeling like I had watched a plot unfold but little else. Missing was the nuanced and subtle depth of character that made The History of Violence such a profound and impressive movie.

That said, Mortensen remains as mesmerizing (both dressed and undressed) as ever. There really should be more naked fight scenes in movies.