Knight at the Movies Archives
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David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen's second collaboration is entralling; Jodie Foster confronts her past
“Okay, now I’m going to do his teeth and cut off his fingers,” Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai Luzhin tells a fellow Russian mob
compatriot early in Eastern Promises. Then the elegant Mortensen stubs out his cigarette on his tongue and goes to work on the
corpse lying in front of him. The elegant, soft spoken, supremely lethal Nikolai eclipses the character Mortensen played in A History
of Violence, his first collaboration with director David Cronenberg. Critics went nutty over that beautiful character study which focused
on the contradictions of a pacifist whose violent past comes back to claim him. The director, working with a terrific script by Steve
Knight, gives Mortensen a character that mines the same contradictory territory in this new movie. But with the addition of the
Russian mob brotherhood, a fascinating variation on the Coreleone’s and the Sopranos, Cronenberg scales new audacious heights
and Eastern Promises is bloody and enthralling and marvelously entertaining.
The movie begins with a grotesque, violent death and moments later a violent birth. Both events will intertwine as the film
progresses. In the latter, a Russian girl still in her teens dies while giving birth in the emergency room. The attending midwife Anna
(Naomi Watts) discovers a diary written in Russian amongst the girl’s personal effects along with a business card for a stylish Trans-
Siberian restaurant. Anna visits the restaurant on Christmas Eve to see if she can find a translator for the diary. The restaurant’s
cultured owner Semyon (a magnificent Armin Mueller-Stahl) agrees to do the translation but asks that she bring the original instead
of a copy and Anna agrees. On her way in and out of the restaurant she encounters Mortensen as Nikolai, Semyon’s driver and
“fixer” and Seymour Cassel as Kirill, Semyon’s son.
It quickly becomes apparent that the dead girl was part of a sex trade operation run by crime boss Semyon and his deadly family.
The relationship between Semyon, Kirill and Nikolai mirrors the ones between Paul Newman, Daniel Craig and Tom Hanks in Road to
Perdition. The son in each is a weakling, a violent, drunken screw up, forever displeasing the elegant yet brutal father who much
prefers the sleek efficiency and unquestioned loyalty of his number two operative, who he considers to be the real son in all but
name.
Cronenberg adds a wonderful undercurrent to this dysfunctional trio by making Kirill a closeted gay and Nikolai the unrequited object
of his lust. Cassel, who has been down this road before (as the gay French king in Elizabeth) is especially memorable in a scene in
which he demands that Nikolai have sex with a young girl while he watches. Dressed in black boxer shorts, sporting the tattoos that
identify rank in the Russian mafia brotherhood (the Vory V Kazone), Nikolai complies. Nikolai uses Kirill’s unspoken attraction to him
to help advance in the ranks (most vividly as the picture draws to its conclusion). Mortensen, quietly commanding like DeNiro in The
Godfather Part II, draws on his innate confidence, grace and charisma. With his Elvis hairdo, black Ray Bans and dressed in black
Armani, an air of violence just under the surface ready to strike at a moment’s notice, Mortensen is mesmerizing.
There is also a growing attraction between Nikolai and Anna, who slowly figures out what a danger zone she’s unwittingly stepped into
and wants to step away but finds Nikolai just about irresistible (with Mortensen in the role, who can blame her?). The picture itself is
deeply alluring as it contrasts between seduction and Cronenberg’s famous penchant for violence. One moment we are steeped in
the sumptuous Christmas feast and its attendant rituals at the restaurant, the next Nikolai and Kirill are disposing of the murder
victim (who has been killed brutally with a straight razor). The two strains coalesce in the movie’s climax in which a naked Mortensen
(yes, all of him) is set upon by two knife wielding assassins. This sequence with its commingled ultra violence and undercurrent of
sexual turn on is right up there with the best of DePalma in Carrie, Dressed to Kill and Blow Out.
Cronenberg focuses on the fate of the baby and that of Anna and Nikolai as the picture moves toward its conclusion but its Nikolai’s
position in the “family” and the brutal brotherhood itself that’s the most interesting. We have seen glimpses of other mafia figures
in the film’s opening murder, during the Christmas dinner at the restaurant, in a memorable sequence in which Nikolai, the tattooed
love boy is made a captain in the family, and throughout at the edges of the picture, but it’s not enough. With material this rich one
wants to explore the inherent juiciness other characters promise and Cronenberg is canny enough to add a twist that makes Nikolai
and his potential impact on the others all the more enticing. Not surprisingly, the movie begs for a sequel: here’s your own Godfather
saga Mr. Cronenberg; your next “Sopranos” HBO. But make sure to keep in the gay undercurrent and pony up the bucks to keep
Mortensen in the role whoever grabs it. But somebody must grab it and continue it. Eastern Promises is so promising with
possibilities one would hate to just stop at one.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jodie Foster returns to the heat and garbage of the Manhattan inner city of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver in her new movie, The Brave
One. With assurance and daring this toughest of female actors plunges into the sights and sounds of her most infamous movie
and takes on the mantle of DeNiro’s Travis Bickle character without batting an eye. “John Hinckley, Jr. who?” the actor seems to say,
“Out of my way.” Foster plays a woman who goes from victim to killer after the police can’t seem to find the group of thugs that
attacked and murdered her husband in Central Park and stole her dog in the process. The movie follows Foster as helplessness and
silent rage turn her into a one woman vigilante who is torn up with guilt. Terrence Howard plays a sympathetic police detective who
suspects Foster is the vigilante; Naveen Andrews from “Lost,” plays the victim and Foster’s love interest.
The movie and the role are variations on many that Foster has essayed before – Flightplan, Panic Room, The Accused, etc. – but
placing herself in the locations and situations the steely part calls for this time out constantly brings to mind dual images of Foster
as the 14 year-old prostitute strutting the streets of New York in Taxi Driver and mental images of the attendant tragedy that
engulfed the young actor when Hinckley identified too strongly with the movie and Foster’s character and attempted to kill the
president. Foster hasn’t discussed that historical incident in-depth (or confirmed or denied speculation about her sexuality) but the
knowledge of all this stuff fuses together when you’re watching the movie. The Brave One, an average to pretty good psychological
action thriller carried by Foster’s unflinching star turn, is elevated by that knowledge.
compatriot early in Eastern Promises. Then the elegant Mortensen stubs out his cigarette on his tongue and goes to work on the
corpse lying in front of him. The elegant, soft spoken, supremely lethal Nikolai eclipses the character Mortensen played in A History
of Violence, his first collaboration with director David Cronenberg. Critics went nutty over that beautiful character study which focused
on the contradictions of a pacifist whose violent past comes back to claim him. The director, working with a terrific script by Steve
Knight, gives Mortensen a character that mines the same contradictory territory in this new movie. But with the addition of the
Russian mob brotherhood, a fascinating variation on the Coreleone’s and the Sopranos, Cronenberg scales new audacious heights
and Eastern Promises is bloody and enthralling and marvelously entertaining.
The movie begins with a grotesque, violent death and moments later a violent birth. Both events will intertwine as the film
progresses. In the latter, a Russian girl still in her teens dies while giving birth in the emergency room. The attending midwife Anna
(Naomi Watts) discovers a diary written in Russian amongst the girl’s personal effects along with a business card for a stylish Trans-
Siberian restaurant. Anna visits the restaurant on Christmas Eve to see if she can find a translator for the diary. The restaurant’s
cultured owner Semyon (a magnificent Armin Mueller-Stahl) agrees to do the translation but asks that she bring the original instead
of a copy and Anna agrees. On her way in and out of the restaurant she encounters Mortensen as Nikolai, Semyon’s driver and
“fixer” and Seymour Cassel as Kirill, Semyon’s son.
It quickly becomes apparent that the dead girl was part of a sex trade operation run by crime boss Semyon and his deadly family.
The relationship between Semyon, Kirill and Nikolai mirrors the ones between Paul Newman, Daniel Craig and Tom Hanks in Road to
Perdition. The son in each is a weakling, a violent, drunken screw up, forever displeasing the elegant yet brutal father who much
prefers the sleek efficiency and unquestioned loyalty of his number two operative, who he considers to be the real son in all but
name.
Cronenberg adds a wonderful undercurrent to this dysfunctional trio by making Kirill a closeted gay and Nikolai the unrequited object
of his lust. Cassel, who has been down this road before (as the gay French king in Elizabeth) is especially memorable in a scene in
which he demands that Nikolai have sex with a young girl while he watches. Dressed in black boxer shorts, sporting the tattoos that
identify rank in the Russian mafia brotherhood (the Vory V Kazone), Nikolai complies. Nikolai uses Kirill’s unspoken attraction to him
to help advance in the ranks (most vividly as the picture draws to its conclusion). Mortensen, quietly commanding like DeNiro in The
Godfather Part II, draws on his innate confidence, grace and charisma. With his Elvis hairdo, black Ray Bans and dressed in black
Armani, an air of violence just under the surface ready to strike at a moment’s notice, Mortensen is mesmerizing.
There is also a growing attraction between Nikolai and Anna, who slowly figures out what a danger zone she’s unwittingly stepped into
and wants to step away but finds Nikolai just about irresistible (with Mortensen in the role, who can blame her?). The picture itself is
deeply alluring as it contrasts between seduction and Cronenberg’s famous penchant for violence. One moment we are steeped in
the sumptuous Christmas feast and its attendant rituals at the restaurant, the next Nikolai and Kirill are disposing of the murder
victim (who has been killed brutally with a straight razor). The two strains coalesce in the movie’s climax in which a naked Mortensen
(yes, all of him) is set upon by two knife wielding assassins. This sequence with its commingled ultra violence and undercurrent of
sexual turn on is right up there with the best of DePalma in Carrie, Dressed to Kill and Blow Out.
Cronenberg focuses on the fate of the baby and that of Anna and Nikolai as the picture moves toward its conclusion but its Nikolai’s
position in the “family” and the brutal brotherhood itself that’s the most interesting. We have seen glimpses of other mafia figures
in the film’s opening murder, during the Christmas dinner at the restaurant, in a memorable sequence in which Nikolai, the tattooed
love boy is made a captain in the family, and throughout at the edges of the picture, but it’s not enough. With material this rich one
wants to explore the inherent juiciness other characters promise and Cronenberg is canny enough to add a twist that makes Nikolai
and his potential impact on the others all the more enticing. Not surprisingly, the movie begs for a sequel: here’s your own Godfather
saga Mr. Cronenberg; your next “Sopranos” HBO. But make sure to keep in the gay undercurrent and pony up the bucks to keep
Mortensen in the role whoever grabs it. But somebody must grab it and continue it. Eastern Promises is so promising with
possibilities one would hate to just stop at one.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jodie Foster returns to the heat and garbage of the Manhattan inner city of Scorsese’s Taxi Driver in her new movie, The Brave
One. With assurance and daring this toughest of female actors plunges into the sights and sounds of her most infamous movie
and takes on the mantle of DeNiro’s Travis Bickle character without batting an eye. “John Hinckley, Jr. who?” the actor seems to say,
“Out of my way.” Foster plays a woman who goes from victim to killer after the police can’t seem to find the group of thugs that
attacked and murdered her husband in Central Park and stole her dog in the process. The movie follows Foster as helplessness and
silent rage turn her into a one woman vigilante who is torn up with guilt. Terrence Howard plays a sympathetic police detective who
suspects Foster is the vigilante; Naveen Andrews from “Lost,” plays the victim and Foster’s love interest.
The movie and the role are variations on many that Foster has essayed before – Flightplan, Panic Room, The Accused, etc. – but
placing herself in the locations and situations the steely part calls for this time out constantly brings to mind dual images of Foster
as the 14 year-old prostitute strutting the streets of New York in Taxi Driver and mental images of the attendant tragedy that
engulfed the young actor when Hinckley identified too strongly with the movie and Foster’s character and attempted to kill the
president. Foster hasn’t discussed that historical incident in-depth (or confirmed or denied speculation about her sexuality) but the
knowledge of all this stuff fuses together when you’re watching the movie. The Brave One, an average to pretty good psychological
action thriller carried by Foster’s unflinching star turn, is elevated by that knowledge.
Sexy Beasts:
Eastern Promises-The Brave One
Expanded Edition of 9-12-07 Windy City Times Knight at the Movies Column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
Eastern Promises-The Brave One
Expanded Edition of 9-12-07 Windy City Times Knight at the Movies Column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
