Think the FSB health plan covers tattoo removal?
― milo z, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:15 (sixteen years ago) link
id say he's ex-kgb which explains his totally badassness and general moral ambiguity.
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:16 (sixteen years ago) link
def not an informant - he's some sort of cop.
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:17 (sixteen years ago) link
i'd say that he outranks the english policeman that he reports to.
― lauren, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:22 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah maybe or it could just be that guy has no sway over him because theyre from different organizations in different countries
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:24 (sixteen years ago) link
and you know because hes such an incredible badass
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:25 (sixteen years ago) link
different organizations that carry different weight. i guess that's what i meant - like russian secret service op vs scotland yard inspector.
― lauren, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:26 (sixteen years ago) link
also as far as the kgb angle he asks naomi watts all interested like if her uncle was really in the kgb - and then later refers to him as "old-school" implying that yes in fact he was in the kgb
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:28 (sixteen years ago) link
xp- the scotland yard guy did seem to be in contact w/ someone who had the power to order nikolai off the case
― dmr, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:28 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah which he was abt to do until he SAW THE TATOOS and was all awww shit it is so on
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:29 (sixteen years ago) link
this movie was so fucking sweet btw
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:30 (sixteen years ago) link
i'm sure scotland yard guy was in contact w/ russian superiors. i just thought that nikolai was in a position of authority as well and wasn't some junior level recruit.
― lauren, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:31 (sixteen years ago) link
i was thinking of him more as a lone-wolf w/lots of autonomy type - rather than high ranking. but that distinction might be immaterial in context.
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:33 (sixteen years ago) link
ah, the "he's old school; he knows how it's done" comment. it could totally be an understanding btwn two old kgb guys, but it could also just be an understanding btwn two russians - people are disappeared, strange things happen, keep your mouth shut.
xpost - his general bad-assedness gives him the lone wolf vibe. i guess my thinking was that an operation of this nature involving cooperation btwn at least two superpowers would involve a fair amt of organization.
― lauren, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:35 (sixteen years ago) link
I can't decide whether the movie leaves *too* much unexplained - I really want to see it again to watch the details more closely
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:37 (sixteen years ago) link
yah this thread is def making me want to see it again and its playing 4 blocks from my door - likelihood: probable.
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:38 (sixteen years ago) link
There's a scene where Kiril says something like "I'm finally understanding how he operates - he plays everyone off of each other" about his father. I kind of took that to be implicitly about Nikolai as well (not in Kiril's mind, but in the film's)
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:39 (sixteen years ago) link
do you think viggo knew he was being set up by the boss and just figured that this is his opportunity to get his stars and he'll just deal w/whatever is coming his way
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:42 (sixteen years ago) link
No, I don't think he knew. The scene in the steam room shows Viggo caught totally off guard - his head is down and remains down until the henchman are right in front of him.
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:43 (sixteen years ago) link
I think this is significant - it's his moment of weakness. Perhaps he's a bit drunk off the idea of the power bestowed by the stars and lets his guard down
i don't think he knew that being "made" was so that he could be set up, but even though his head is down i don't think it meant that he didn't suspect something. it would be VERY strange if someone like him didn't think that there was anything fishy about the scenario.
― lauren, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:45 (sixteen years ago) link
and i don't think that he looked relaxed. his head was bowed, but he seemed totally coiled/tense.
― lauren, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:46 (sixteen years ago) link
But he really doesn't appear to notice their presence until the last possible second
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:47 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah like hey youve been working for me for two weeks wanna join my super secret club :)
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:47 (sixteen years ago) link
maybe he was just playing possum to give the assassins a false sense of safty
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:48 (sixteen years ago) link
but isn't it possible that he thought he might have a better chance of dealing with whoever was coming if it appeared that he was like, "zzzzzzzz"?
― lauren, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:49 (sixteen years ago) link
ha xpost
Fuk, I want to watch that scene right now
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:50 (sixteen years ago) link
there are cam versions on bittorrent
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:50 (sixteen years ago) link
imo not really worth watching but prob ok for important research
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:51 (sixteen years ago) link
Notice that scene also reveals that Nikolai has both male and female genitalia - a subtle allusion to his duality
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:52 (sixteen years ago) link
I agree that he was caught off guard in the steam room, which did seem out of character.
I wondered whether Kiril's dad told anyone else (like the old Russian mafia dudes who came to tattoo Nikolai) whether the stars were for a setup, but obv. the answer has to be no. It would probably not be seen as an acceptable move anyway by Semyon's peers?
― Jordan, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:53 (sixteen years ago) link
Yeah, I wondered that too, but assumed he'd have no need to tell them and probably wouldn't for his own sake.
― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah this is what i was thinking. you dont let outsiders in on yr sacred rituals. he was going waaaay out on a limb to save his son. which is why it ended up such a sweet situation for viggo.
― jhøshea, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:55 (sixteen years ago) link
Semyon's peers probably would've supported the killing of Kiril, as Kiril's killing of his old friend was out of line.
― dan selzer, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 16:55 (sixteen years ago) link
So... I kinda buy into the "happy family" scene at the end as being almost a case of Nikolai daydreaming. Wishful thinking. He gets the kind of things "wrong" that a man would tend to get wrong in a daydream: The perfect, gurgling, beautifully dressed baby; the filmy, flimsy, bare-armed dress on the mother. She might as well be wearing pearls, a shirt-waist and pushing her brand new Hoover. Honestly. That scene is just too idealized, too perfectly happy ending.
And then we're pulled back to Nikolai, sitting in the shadows where he's chosen to make his world, with that heavy expression of heartbreak in his eyes. He's seen a sliver of possible normality and knows he'll never have it.
And ... Has anyone else mentioned how HOV and EP perfectly bookend each other? HOV opens with violence, yes, but immediately afterward with the most idealized, corny, non-realistic family scene in my knowledge of cinema. It's so over-the-top happy cheese that it's hard to watch. But then things turn darker. And darker. And darker.
EP opens in that darkness, goes even darker, to the point of total loss, then comes back to end with another Happy McCheese Family Scene.®
If you consider, for the sake of argument, that HOV actually begins on a day in the desert when Joey Cusack dies and Tom Stall is born, and that EP ends with Nikolai having courted "normality" and chosen the dark, then the tale begins and ends with a man alone.
And just for the record -- the person who said EP is showing four blocks from his/her house? I have to hate you a little. I've seen it, yes, but only by making a five-hour round trip drive.
Feh.
― Hey Jude, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 20:23 (sixteen years ago) link
Oh shit, that's a really good reading actually - the daydream thing.
― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 01:24 (sixteen years ago) link
that brief scene manages to be very odd. she and the baby are dressed up, there's a special meal... it's a bit like they're expecting someone.
― lauren, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 01:34 (sixteen years ago) link
Has anyone else mentioned how HOV and EP perfectly bookend each other?
it definitely occurred to me that in HOV viggo was a stereotypical "good" character who had dark secrets and in this one he is a stereotypical mobster bad guy who has a secret good side
― dmr, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 01:36 (sixteen years ago) link
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".
― dan selzer, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 03:32 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― Hey Jude, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 03:38 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― s1ocki, Friday, 21 December 2007 06:09 (sixteen years ago) link
i mean it's an ok undercover thriller and the fight scene is great but it's not really that special!
― s1ocki, Friday, 21 December 2007 06:10 (sixteen years ago) link
I wish it was out on dvd already, it would solve some of my what-to-get-the-kids-for-xmas braindeadness.
― Beth Parker, Saturday, 22 December 2007 00:59 (sixteen years ago) link
I think it is out on DVD. This movie is fucking good but I'm a sucker for Cronenberg so I'm biased.
― Abbott, Monday, 24 December 2007 19:42 (sixteen years ago) link
"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.
― Alex in SF, Monday, 24 December 2007 19:43 (sixteen years ago) link
My socks were KNOCKED OFF!
― Abbott, Monday, 24 December 2007 19:44 (sixteen years ago) link
-- 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.
― s1ocki, Monday, 24 December 2007 20:45 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― Daniel, Esq., Monday, 24 December 2007 20:51 (sixteen years ago) link
what loose ends?
― s1ocki, Monday, 24 December 2007 20:54 (sixteen years ago) link
were there any real russians in this movie?
― dorkus malorkus (latebloomer), Monday, 22 June 2009 05:40 (fifteen years ago) link
dope movie. fight scene is one of the best i've ever seen
― matos w. k. iw (k3vin k.), Monday, 22 June 2009 05:42 (fifteen years ago) link
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?
― wilter, Monday, 22 June 2009 05:49 (fifteen years ago) link
link fucked up
― wilter, Monday, 22 June 2009 05:56 (fifteen years ago) link
asdgsdfbgg
― wilter, Monday, 22 June 2009 05:57 (fifteen years ago) link
Can't help feeling I'd have preferred this film had the same raw material been dumped in the hands of Polanski.
― the fantasy-life of nations has consequences in the real worl (fields of salmon), Monday, 22 June 2009 17:22 (fifteen years ago) link
i feel the same way about transformers
― dorkus malorkus (latebloomer), Monday, 22 June 2009 17:45 (fifteen years ago) link
s1ocki otm here. watts was so insufferably morally offended college freshman here
― =皿= (dyao), Friday, 1 January 2010 16:12 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.avclub.com/article/eastern-promises-sequel-getting-ready-film-march-248596
― nomar, Wednesday, 18 January 2017 01:11 (seven years ago) link
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/1920_zpsjtt5rcby.jpg
― nomar, Wednesday, 18 January 2017 01:19 (seven years ago) link
hope they show us how he got his powars
― Neanderthal, Wednesday, 18 January 2017 01:46 (seven years ago) link
Hurting & s1ocki were on teh drugs
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Tuesday, 15 August 2023 08:04 (one year ago) link