Ian: Having just seen the equally baby-centered Shoot ‘Em Up, it's worth saying that besides the presence of a small child, and a similar "black jacket goomba" fashion statement, Eastern Promises bears few resemblances to the former's simpler fun.
Will: It's true; this film has a much more conservative umbilical cord scene too. This film is a lot heavier than Clive Owen's action flick; it is a dirty, gritty drama. But man is it good. The story goes a little something like this: Anna (Naomi Watts) is a hospital midwife who encounters a young Russian girl who dies giving birth. Anna's search for the baby's family leads to a dangerous encounter with the Russian mob and a handsomely tattooed Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), who walks a thin line trying to protect Anna while advancing higher in the criminal world.

Ian: Solid summary for a solid film. The comparisons with the centerpiece of director David Cronenberg's resume, A History of Violence, are inevitable. Both films move in a slow boil; even more than in A History of Violence, the characters in Eastern Promises fill out, and all seem particularly human. This success must be in large part assigned to the fantastic casting. Other than Mortensen and Watts, it is clear that the producers took special care, considering less-than-A-list individuals to walk the often-treacherous tightrope between endearing and disrespectful foreigner, between comedic and silly dialogue, between crime drama and shoot-out flick.

Will: From the opening brutal scene, you know you're in for some grit. There's one scene where Mortensen has to fight two guys with knives in a bathhouse. And he's naked. That scene was so awesome, but not because Mortensen is naked, but because of how hardcore it was. Really. I swear. But the action is not the main focus of this movie. The action comes out of character conflict, and it is the careful characterizations that carry this movie. The threat of violence is just as suspenseful as the actual violence.

Ian: There's no techno-rock soundtrack, there are no explosions... as a matter of fact, this film may go down in time as the only gangster movie not to have a single gun in it. That's right. Not one. I'm not even sure how the hell they did it. Consider it a testament to the production of the film that the attention spans of two violence-accustomed 21-year-old male minds could not only sustain interest, but maintain committed buy-in to the seriousness of the events without a single bullet being fired. Quite a feat.

Will: Naomi Watts and Viggo Mortensen really shine in this movie. Watts is much more than just the pretty face we remember from the latest King Kong movie, and she's certainly come a long way from Children of the Corn IV. Yes, that's right. She was the lead in Children of the Corn IV. If you can escape that, you can do anything. Mortensen continues to put distance between himself and the Aragorn character that threatened to typecast him. Who knows, maybe he planned on Hidalgo being so bad that people would compare his future movies to that instead of to the Lord of the Rings. Whatever the case, he plays Nikolai with a kind of quiet self-confidence that clearly defines his character as someone you don't want to mess with.

Ian: As something of a Russophile, I was happy to see the culture portrayed with due dignity and the accents maintained with due dignity (Russian being one of the few tongues which you cannot pull the classic Hollywood trick of simply casting British actors/actresses to represent). The steady imbibing of vodka is balanced with some really interesting cross-cultural dialogue centering on Watts' character, as well as a few family scenes which were Godfather-esque in their authenticity to tradition.

Will: Certainly my favorite Russian cultural element was the random Fabio look-a-like accordion player. He is the goofiest accordion player since Weird Al Yankovic. That aside, one of the best cast supporting actors in this movie had to be Armin Mueller-Stahl as the head of the Russian mob. He switches from kindly old grandfather to cold and threatening crime lord with amazing ease and credibility.

Ian: A subtle duality that I enjoyed from his first scene. I also enjoyed the reappearance of Ocean's 12/13 bad boy, Vincent "the Nightfox" Cassel. In another perfect role, Cassel plays the troubled son to the kingpin. Watching Cassel display both the mob patriarchy with Mueller-Stahl, and the mob's brotherhood with Mortensen makes him tremendously supportive to the film's overall purpose. This, if I had to summarize, would be a portrait of criminality, and how it affects the structure of human relations.

Will: This is a good movie that should be a hit with mature audiences and tattoo aficionados at the same time. Eastern Promises earns 4 out of 5 stars from us.

Ian: Only an accordion, a little (*cough*) deedle-deedle-dee from Mortensen, and a couple of difficult gory moments hold this movie back from achieving near-universal accessibility. Hard to get many jokes out of it, but then again, that's probably a good thing.