Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Eastern Promises: No "History"

After watching A History Of Violence on 2005, there was no way it wouldn't become part of "The Creedon Collection". While I never bothered with Cronenberg before that (only Scanners peaked my interest many years ago) I thought he was a bit to weird, like David Lynch; but A History... wasn't like that and thankfully neither is Eastern Promises.

Disappointingly though, Eastern Promises is only half as good. Admittadly, I'm not a great fan of movies that are about people on the other side of the law, wheather it glorifies them or not but I will say that this isn't your run-of-the-mill Mafia-type movie. While the story is expertly woven and made for compelling viewing, there just wasn't enough "meat" in it to chew on and it's pace is just too damn slow. While Viggo Mortensen is outstanding, he just doesn't have anyone to spar against dramatically as he did with the great Ed Harris in A History... (Harris actually won the Whopper Award for that particular role!!) Here Viggo plays the driver of a Russian Mafia crime boss in London who befriends a midwife played by the charming but dramatically redundant Naoimi Watts who is searching for infomation on the family of a 14-Year-Old Russian Jane Doe who died at childbirth so she can return the baby to them. The Russian boss is played underwhelmingly by Armin The Power Of One Mueller-Stahl who to be quite frank did much better in his brief role in The Peacemaker than all his screen time here. I will say that Vincent Cassel did his usual best with his part as Stahl's drunkard idiot son but the character was also handled badly and is forgettable.

Now even if it's true to life I found it moronic that an entire cadre of mafia-types hadn't one firearm between them- I don't want to see movies like this without guns it defeats the whole purpose (you can forget about explosions here too). That said there's a couple of well executed (pardon the pun - Ahem!) throat cuts using blades and even a stark naked Viggo is embroiled in a brutal and visceral bath-house brawl which is surprisingly un-homo erotic. Still between this and 300 I've seen far to much male flesh this year, I'm off to watch some lesbian porno now.

Final Verdict: Excellent performance from Viggo but brought down by poorly executed supporting characters. Brilliant knife use but brought down by lack of firearms in a movie that should have had them. Good story but slow and ultimatly failed to accomplish what A History of Violence did.

Colonel Creedon Verdict: ***


15 comments:

Unknown said...

All 'A History Of Violence' achieved was make me physically sick and hate Hollywood, and by extension the rest of humanity, even more. The only good thing about that film was that wan who used to be in ER got naked, but she gets naked in every film she's in so it doesn't really count. She did have a very hairy fanny from what I remember though......

Anonymous said...

I'd like to make clear to the audience that the Lt.Col in this article is not, I repeat, not stating a preference for homo-erotic bath-house brawls over un-homo erotic bath-house brawls.

The Lt.Col is merely expressing his support for the fruity contingent of the armed forces.

Major General Creedon said...

@ Cubaboy: You didn't like it then?

@ Civvy: Viggo could have worn his frikkin' towel tighter is all I'm saying. Towels don't fall off like that on people on TV before 21:00 or in PG films so why does it have to happen here?

Bruce Russell said...

One advantage: Naomi Watts is WAAAAAAAY hotter than Maria Bello, who is starting to 'show her actual miles.'

Bruce Russell said...

@ Cubaboy- I was confused by your post, until I remembered that 'fanny' means something different in that States than in most of the rest of the world.

Just curious- do they still call those little pouches that tourists and bike messengers wear around their wastes 'fanny packs' over there?

Bruce Russell said...

And as for Viggo's dancing schlong, I could do without that as well. I'll still traumatized by the memory of Huey Lewis's 'peeing in the river' scene from Robert Altman's Short Cuts.

Don't you think all movie titles should begin with the director's name? 'Uwe Boll's Super Mario Strikers,' etc.

Speaking of unpleasant associations, that reminds me of the tranny my bride and I saw at Disney last week, dressed as Princess Toadstool from Super Marion Bros. Ayieeee!

Anonymous said...

Bruce, thats nothing, The missus and me sat beside a Ladyboy wearing a miniskirt, that kept riding up, on a flight from the UK to Ireland recently. Scary!

Lt.Col, Stop, repeat, Stop, please stop, going on about how tight your hero, "Viggo" can wear a towel. This just places more emphasis on your considerable knowledge of gay porn.

Constance said...

lol! Boys are funny! Wait... you don't think that lesbian porn really does exist, do you? That those girls with the fake boobs and the spray on tans and the long fingernails are actual lesbians? Nah. Silly of me to even ask. What was it that they said in Weird Science? Something like, "We know about the reality. Just don't mess with the fantasy."

I was talking to my friend tonight, who is a real live vegelesbian, and I was telling her about you guys. She looked at your blog, Colonel, and saw the photo of you and the Marine and she said "he's a fuckin' cutie!" She meant you. Though the Marine isn't bad either.

And I am just waiting for the day that the verification thingy comes up with "usmc."

Anonymous said...

"Vegelesbian?". Vegetarian / Lesbian?

Major General Creedon said...

@ Bruce: Surely they don't allow such deviants in Disney?

@ Civvy: Yeah, well I've watched all your DVDs on the subject and I'm happy to report that although my eyes bled, despite your best efforts: I'm still straight.

@ Constance: Is it flattering to be called a cutie by a Lesbian? (Vegelesbian even?) I'm confused.

@ Former Grunt: Yeah it got me too.

Constance said...

Grunt: yeah!
Colonel: Hell yeah!

Anonymous said...

Lt.Col, your eyes bled?, seriously dude, don't you know too much of that sort of activity will make you go blind!

Hey, if you turn fruity then theres more for the rest of us! ;)

Major General Creedon said...

*Hands Civvy a loaded Glock*

You know what to do if you see me turn!

Anonymous said...

BANG!, OOOPS, sorry, didn't have the safety on, honest. ;)

Constance said...

I roll my eyes at you all!