Cronenberg's Eastern Promises Spoiler Thread

But they have to do a third. You know, just one more really violent but incredibly well crafted movie, so it can be a "trilogy".

Fie! Fie on trilogies! Fie on quartologies and quintopelies and sextepelies and whatever bazillionth number Robert Jordan was up to before he died.

But seriously... It was thrilling that there was no sequel to HOV, and I hope the same holds true for EP. The pleasure and pain of working out your own vision of the characters' futures is a large part of why those movies work, to me.

did you guys really think this movie was that good? i liked some of it but i didn't find it as endlessly fascinating as the rest of the posters on this thread. and the diary voiceover stuff was brutal.

i mean it's an ok undercover thriller and the fight scene is great but it's not really that special!

I wish it was out on dvd already, it would solve some of my what-to-get-the-kids-for-xmas braindeadness.

I think it is out on DVD. This movie is fucking good but I'm a sucker for Cronenberg so I'm biased.

"i mean it's an ok undercover thriller and the fight scene is great but it's not really that special!"

Define "special"? It's a solidly entertaining well put together film! That's pretty special in this day and age.

My socks were KNOCKED OFF!

Define "special"? It's a solidly entertaining well put together film! That's pretty special in this day and age.

-- Alex in SF, Monday, December 24, 2007 7:43 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i just thought it was way more of a conventional thriller than i'd been led to expect and that there was some really weak stuff in it. like i said, the diary VO, the terrible scenes at home with naomi watts' family... even the reveal that vigo is undercover, which made his character so much less interesting to me.

I saw it on DVD last night. Fantastic film. I like the ambiguity and loose ends left at the end of Cronenberg's recent movies.

what loose ends?

"i just thought it was way more of a conventional thriller than i'd been led to expect and that there was some really weak stuff in it."

That's a fair cop. I mean it's nothing amazing novel or anything. I didn't mind the Naomi Watts when she's at home thing, but the reveal is a bit poorly handled. And while the VO is bothersome the ending ending (down to the final shot) is well played (and I did like the ambiguity of Vito's character in the end--is he using the cops to become kind of the underworld vs. he's a good cop trying to take down the underworld.) All that said it's certainly not half as good as Dirty Pretty Things IMO.

It was certainly compelling and atmospheric, but the twist regarding Mortensen's character made the whole thing a good deal less morally interesting, reducing it to a good guys/bad guys story. Alex's take above is interesting, but I don't really buy it. Still well worth watching though.

it was up on here th other day
(http://movies.nabolister.com/list.php?movieorserie=0)
..im sure it will reappear
divx and firefox are a help too

i liked dirty pretty things but it had a pretty laaaaaame ending (their whole super-awesome secret plan)

what loose ends?

Sorry, missed this response. The loose end I meant is whether Nikolai is "with the police" or "with the mob" at the end of the movie.

he's an undercover cop. considering he does nothing really bad in the movie besides maybe chopping up teh already-dead dude i'm not really getting the moral ambiguity other folks are sensing in this one.

He essentially raped an underage sex slave, and you think he did nothing really bad in the movie?

s1ocki otm, this was ok but not that great. talked to some chick from moscow and she kind of talked me down from my high, which was induced by that fight scene and my <3 of vigo. sub-b-movie at best. 'a history of violence' was so much better unless i talk to some chick from iowa, but even then i doubt it. such a cronenberg fanboy after i saw 'spider.' and you know everything else. god what a great director, hope it doesn't get too bad from here.

no you're right... having sex with the prostitute is defly the worst thing he does. but im not getting why this is any more nuanced or interesting than any other "in too deep!" undercover thriller.

i mean he puts up her uncle in a 5-star hotel for christ's sakes. when he said that i knew the movie was going downhill.

Cronenberg's career this decade sort of defines "nothing special" to me.

My favorite is probably that 2000 short he did for TIFF that's on the Videodrome DVD.

1. everybody otm who said this defines mediocrity as thrillers go (cronenberg: I'll beat hitchcock!! I'll use BLOOD AND GUTS to do it!)

2. how the fuck do you walk away from this confused that semyon sets him up (knowing he's an informer, most likely) and that he is an FSB agent working with Scotland Yard all along?

ok nevermind I did the math, put 1 and 2 together = some folks have just not made a habit of watching all these undercover/espionage thrillers ever

still I think most directors who aren't cronenberg would have told this story with about 16-20 minutes less fluff and gore, and the film would have been better for it. it's a short, neat piece, I honestly see very little that's "open ended" about it at all. Total waste of Viggo after the first "undertaker" sequence and I'd hardly call myself a Viggo fan

so many little "touches" in this film are just a waste of time

yup, pretty much.

Viggo is the only good thing about this film, but he really is great in it and single-handedly makes it watchable.

I dunno. I like Armin Mueller-Stahl as Semyon. He was a pretty effective bad guy, despite any wrongness re: Russianness.

Viggo is the only good thing about this film

The cinematography and use of London locations are pretty good as well. Oh, and that fight.

Actually I enjoyed it. But it's kind of an absurd film when you scrutinise it.

I liked the "verticality" of this (for lack of a better word) -- lots of scenes with the actors (esp. Viggo, with his hair tightly slicked back) standing ramrod straight, shots bookended by walls or slyly-framed architecture. I'm thinking especially of the scene between Mueller-Stahl & the barber behind the restaurant -- AM-S standing on the platform in the background, barber in the foreground, both framed by the lines of the buildings and the walls -- and especially the scene in the bathhouse. It infused everything a sense of tension and enclosure that gave the movie most of its juice.

I'm a softie, tho -- thinking about the plot might make me sad, and the ending was a bit of a whoopie cushion, but I liked everyone in it (even Watts, tho she didn't have much to do after the 1st 30 minutes), liked that the treachery was mostly left unexplained until the aftermath, and had no problem w/ the voiceover (it lent the scene w/ the girl singing right before Viggo paid her a little after-the-fact oomph) or the TWIST.

i loved this

when i watch movies i'm not comparing them to other movies on a scale of one to fucking ten, although if i had to choose a grade i'd give this one a V for VIGGO

i agree with all of lauren's posts and i think the fact that it's even possible to observe what she observed shows what a fully imagined world cronenberg creates. the loose ends aren't in the plot, they're in little provocations and niggles that are just irreducibly there, and set my imagination off. he draws my attention to things that other directors don't - the sound of a tattoo needle; jumping up to get the balloon in the netting; the unsatisfying physicality of a useless motorcycle kickstarter - even if the story itself is no great shakes on paper. i like that he decided to do a genre piece and bring that sensibility, rather than do another freakazoid gristle gun hallucination. even history of violence was too shaggy dog for me.

other things i want to remember:

the little violinist girls

the idiot kid happily yelling "arsenal" in the middle of 10,000 chelsea fans, wearing the wrong color scarf, and then actually pissing on someone's grave - hmm you think he's got something coming to him? woops, your neck just turned into a waterfall. you don't really see that type of thing in a stephen frears movie.

i was also pleased to see that the opening scene (in the barber shop) was set on one of my local high streets, broadway market! now that i think about it, the argentinian restaurant has photos of viggo and cronenberg in there, looking tired, with their arms around a couple of the chefs.

about the reveal, yeah - i was thinking: it doesn't change anything about the story. the story would be stronger if he was just a criminal with a heart of gold, right? but i think i know why it's this way. because it adds a whole whonking gallon of difficulty to his relationship w/naomi watts. it offers him a chance that a normal criminal wouldn't have, a chance to hang it all up - the tooth removal and the almost-getting-killed - and cash it in with naomi watts. but it clashes with his passion, to go as far as he can, to take out the really big dogs. viggo being a cop means he gets to wrestle with this question. i'm kind of glad we don't get some drawn-out scene spelling out this tug-of-war in his heart. we just infer it, from that last, short scene of him at the table in the restaurant.

also vincent cassell was tremendous

yes this was pretty tremendous

Apparently Cronenberg & Viggo have a sequel in the works.

yeah, it's really beguiling. i remember thinking i wanted it go on much longer, it was such a pleasure just watching the characters inhabit this super detailed world. so many great locations too: the restaurant/club, the bathhouse, the cemetery, that weird slipway on the river.

x-post uh, cool i get my wish i guess

<3<3<3 this movie; it definitely stands up to repeat viewings

I liked it. The diary readings were occasionally painful tho iirc

were there any real russians in this movie?

dope movie. fight scene is one of the best i've ever seen

yeah that fight was ridiculous

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark_of_Cain_(2000_film)

been meaning to get a t()rrent of that^.Anyone seen it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark_of_Cain_(2000_film)

link fucked up

asdgsdfbgg

Can't help feeling I'd have preferred this film had the same raw material been dumped in the hands of Polanski.

i feel the same way about transformers

s1ocki otm here. watts was so insufferably morally offended college freshman here

http://www.avclub.com/article/eastern-promises-sequel-getting-ready-film-march-248596

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/1920_zpsjtt5rcby.jpg

hope they show us how he got his powars

Hurting & s1ocki were on teh drugs