Solid film with some excellent performances (Vincent Cassel is particularly good, and Armin Mueller-Stahl is exquisite) and some very fine sequences. A first rate script, and a generally understated story that explodes into some spectacular but utterly believable violence at times.

So why only 4 stars? I don't really know. The mid-film plot twist might be part of it, but I'm not sure. It just seems to be missing a certain something.

And on a final note: like a lot of Cronenberg films, it rewards repeated viewings. The man is a craftsman, and while I don't put him in the Kurosawa, Welles, Ford, Polanski, Hitchcock class, he is always worth a look.

I'm a very big David Cronenberg fan, and this movie started off very promising, but in the end I agree with CanadaSucks-- decent movie with solid performances, but a bit over-rated. I think the "plot twist" that is revealed about mid-way through the film...which I won't reveal in deference to those who haven't seen it yet and might still want to...took the picture off-track for me, and it never got back on-track. Still, it's not boring...Cronenberg's films are always intelligent, well-formulated and engrossing...and it does show the viewer an aspect of organized crime that most people aren't very familiar with. And it is very violent; then again, it wouldn't be a David Cronenberg flick if it weren't.

I hit the preview button on the Red Box at the local market the other night. When I hit the button, a warning appeared on the screen:

WARNING! DO NOT LET STARK INTO THE ROOM UNTIL THE CREDITS ARE ROLLING! CONTAINS SOMES SERIOUS- OVER-THE-TOP-MEANT-TO-SHOCK-YOU-VIOLENT CONTENT

My kind of movie. I rented it. Great story (see details in previous reviews here). The 'bath house" scene made the Alan Bates/Oliver Reed rasslin' scene in "Women in Love" look like a peck on the cheek and was to this movie what Michael Masden's "ear scene" in "Resevoir Dogs" was to Masden's entire career. Good performances by Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts and Aleksandar Mikic, as the  Russian Godfather. The nature of the violence was, however, well-researched and meant to enforce the violent nature of Russia's tatooed criminal brotherhood, the Vory V Zakone.

Err. . .the bath house scene. . .err. . .it's a whole lot of bloody manhood there. . .decent Cronenberg (sp?) flick but somewhat overrated. Worth a rental if you like a gory page-turner.

I caught this Eastern Promises on cable the other day and it's pretty solid.  Viggo Mortenson has the swagger and presence to carry off his role as a menacing Russian mafia type in London, trying to protect an underground prostitution ring from a meddling Naomi Watts.  Vincent Cassel is solid as the bumbling Russian Playboy, always embarrassing his father.

Oh yeah - it's very, very violent.  Lots of graphic throat slitting and stuff.

 Eastern Promises is a top-notch thriller, though laced with tension and violence. Magnificent acting by Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts, with gritty realism. Kept me on the edge of my seat. A mid-wife at a London hospital finds a Russian-language diary on a 14-year-old girl who died during childbirth. She sets out to track down the girl's family so she can find a home for the dead mother's baby, but unknowingly stumbles into dangerous secrets of the Russian mafia. Well worth seeing if you have the stomach for this kind of thriller.