At the impressionable age of thirteen, I changed overnight after seeing Alien with a friend from school and his Father. We went back to his house after the movie, and we wrote our first song “We were Walking Down the Street”; an ode to violence about thugs and other seedy characters fighting in pubs on the streets of Europe (I am sure I wouldn’t have described it this elaborately many years ago). This led to my teenage love affair with blood, and my exposure to some brutally harsh films like The Godfather I & II, and the Deer Hunter. I remember my Civics teacher expressing some concern when I was doodling point blank gunshots to the head on my class work; I was just fascinated with violence mixed with a sense of realism – I wasn’t really into the whole Friday the 13th craze, that movie was just an excuse to make out with my girlfriend. What Eastern Promises did for me was bring me back to that time. I can’t really put my finger on the exact reason for my linking to those early moments in my life, other than the maybe the film was like experiencing something for the first time.

The movie opens with a brutal murder juxtaposed with the birth of a child and the death of her fourteen year old mother, Tatianna. Anna (Naomi Watts) is the shift midwife at the hospital, and she comes across a diary in the mother’s belongings. The diary is in Russian, and it has a card for a local restaurant run by the Vory V Zakone family (Russian Mafia), which is run by a ruthless and reserved father figure Semyon (Armin Mueller Stahl). The seemingly innocent Anna is thrust into the dark underbelly of London, when she gains some enemies while trying to find Tatianna’s family. The close knit family is made up of Semyon, Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and “the driver” Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). Kirill is the ignorant son that will never amount up to his father’s expectations, and the intense Nikolai is more like a son that Semyon never had. This will ultimately lead to betrayal and a showdown over the secrets that Tatianna’s diary is gradually revealing throughout the story.

In typical Cronenberg form, the movie establishes discomfort and fear early on – I got that feeling like I was a kid who stumbled upon a bunch of punks that you knew were up to no good, but you would get the crap kicked out of you if you mentioned anything to anybody. The casting was perfect, and Viggo Mortensen stands out as he matures into a character actor, like the early days of Dustin Hoffman and Robert DiNiro. Vincent Cassel (Ocean’s 12 & 13) turns in an Oscar worthy performance as the unlikable and unpredictable Kirill, whose drunken bloodshot eyes almost convince you to give him some sympathy.

Cronenberg’s weapon of choice this time around is the blade. He creates so much tension that you feel as if you’re being cut as the knives wisp through the air with brutal precision; it gives new meaning to the phrase “There’s so much tension in here that you can cut through it with a knife”. There are barely any guns, for the knives enable thugs to maneuver their murders with ease. The showdown in the bathhouse is nothing short than the most original fight scene in years. Yes, Viggo is naked in battle, but it adds a sense of vulnerability due to the lack of what little protection clothing would have to offer in a knife fight.

I have always been a fan of David Cronenberg, and I am already anxiously awaiting his next project. His films get me off the couch, and back in the theatre where I belong. Maybe this will be the year that he finally gets some recognition as being one of the best directors of our time; he deserves to have a spot on the same pedestal as Kubrick, Scorcese and Lynch.