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Eastern Promises (2007)

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John Cougar Lunchbucket Jan 12 2008 09:11 PM

Yet another unwanted pregnancy (!!) reveals deadly hijinks among expat Russian mobsters in London. As in "A History of Violence," David Cronenberg directs Viggo Mortenson to play a charismatic, conflicted lead amid some horrifyingly gruesome graphic violence that I guarantee will make you squirm or your money back. Aside from some "if Woody had gone straight to the Police..." a satisfying psychological and stylish thriller.

metirish Feb 02 2008 09:23 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Feb 02 2008 09:56 PM

Just watched it , I found the whole midwife sticking her nose into Russian mobster business a distraction , very gruesome scenes and one great fight.

AG/DC Feb 02 2008 09:54 PM

The series of implausabilities in History of Violence was laugable, considering Mortensen and Cronenberg were going around telling me that they wanted me to think big questions. Leaving me wanting to think about not making the same mistake again with this one.

sharpie Feb 10 2008 01:06 PM

Just saw it. Liked it well enough. Viggo was really good. Some kind of implausible stuff though.

Vic Sage Feb 19 2008 01:30 PM

don't get me started on the issue of "plausibility". In an analysis similar to the Chicago school of legal realism, "plausibility" is a complaint you make when you don't like a movie, its not the real REASON people dislike a movie. to put it another way... "legal realism" is a theory of jurisprudence in which judges, instead of gleaning the facts and applying them to the law to arrive at a legal opinion, have a viceral instintive reaction to a fact pattern (based on a range of their own emotional, logical, political, sociological reasons) and then have their clerks go find the judicial bases for the conclusion they've already come to. in movies, the similar analysis goes, we as viewers have an instinctive and viceral reaction to a film (for a host of reasons... some rational, some not), and then we find reasons to pick apart those films we don't like or to defend the films we do. "Plausiblity' is one of the prime excuses we use to justify our dislike of a movie. Vincent Canby once wrote an excellent Sunday Times column on this subject... its not that we don't like stories that are implausible, its that we find implausible the stories we don't like, and we stretch to find plausibility (or excuse implausibility) for the stories we like. Its just a theory. I happen to subscribe to it.

Vic Sage Feb 19 2008 01:35 PM

with regard to EASTERN PROMISES, i liked it very much. Mortensen continues to prove himself a strong movie presence... almost mythic, really. But i liked HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, too, so i'll let the rest of you debate the "implausibilities" inherent in the dreamlike cinema of David Cronenberg. At some point, i'm going to do a Cronenberg Filmography. He's been a really important and underrated filmmaker for a very long time.

AG/DC Feb 19 2008 01:39 PM

Apparently you got started. Tons of things are implausible in every film. Certain things are implausible within the context of the reality they seem to want me to receive the film in. And that's where they detract. The existence of the giant serpent living in the asteroid in The Empire Strikes Back is an implausibility within the context of my reality, but I sacrifice that and accept that I'm in a time and place where it isn't. Han and Leia exiting the ship into the serpent's belly without suits or devices to account for the pressure and gravity of the environment seems implausible even in the context of the time and place I've accepted. And I love the film.

Vic Sage Feb 19 2008 01:59 PM

i'm not saying that there aren't tons of implausibilities in every film. In fact, I'm saying that there ARE. So, when people focus on implausibilities as the basis for why they don't like a particular movie, it seems to me they're not making an accurate analysis. It's not necessarily because the film is implausible that they don't like it, its because they don't like it that they are focusing on the implausibilities. pointing out implausibilities is called "nitpicking" when its about a film you like, and it's called "this story has holes so big you can drive a truck through them" when its one you don't. (note to self: remember to find a word equivalently short and pithy as "nitpicking" for this opposite situation.)

AG/DC Feb 19 2008 02:05 PM

Vic Sage wrote: i'm not saying that there aren't tons of implausibilities in every film. In fact, I'm saying that there ARE. I know you're not. I'm making a concession there. Offering an agreement. The substance of my post disagrees with the notion that considering implausibilities a detraction is nitpicking over films one doesn't like.