Goodness and dignity are virtues that are better not spoken of in the same breath as the mafia. At the very outset, David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises establishes this world as one of mobsters, henchmen and cold blooded murderers. A barber has his russian client's throat slashed and a woman who's been severely abused dies giving birth to a child, both being acts of the russian underworld operating in London. The russian is coldly dispatched into the waters by the mafioso while the child is taken into custody by the midwife, determined to protect it. Neither killing is justified, moreso because both are brought about by ridiculously silly acts completely unbecoming of the sort of cold calculating mafia that we believe operates and this is precisely why the redemptive forces at work by the end of the film seem baffling.

One of the mafioso is Kirill (Vincent Cassell), son of the mafia boss Semyon (Armin Muellher Stahl) who's operating under the guise of a restaurateur. He is accompanied by Nikolay (Viggo Mortenson), his fiercely loyal accomplice, who's cool headed and whom the boss respects for his wisdom a lot more than his son. The midwife is Anna (Naomi Watts), a second generation russian immigrant living with her uncle Stepan, an ex KGB veteran with strong views on race and heritage. Anna discovers the dead woman's diary and in an attempt to get it translated, finds her way to Semyon through one of her business cards. The diary contains damning evidence against Semyon and his son and the boss tries to eliminate all traces of it.

There's an attempt here to infuse the threadbare and cliched plot with a certain amount of intelligence through a quiet dispassionate study of it's characters. Most effort is reserved for Nikolay, who's loyal, obedient, violent when he has to be and absolutely cold. He does have an odd moment or two of compassion especially in his interactions with Anna. He seems completely unaffected by Kirill's humiliating treatment asking him to do terrible things to prove his loyalty and his heterosexuality. Semyon is the other character built to a tee, exuding an affable and charming exterior to mask his criminal underbelly. Kirill is a wayward and irresponsible son whose fumbles and temper tantrums are covered up by Nikolay. Semyon doesn't quite like his son, beating him up very often, but he can't let go either. Nikolay goes about his job as objectively as he can but there always seems to be more underneath. He's striving to become one of the family and since the boss trusts him far more than he does his son, why not.

Very little of the premise comes across as convincing. The more the layers pile up the more baffling the plot twists become. These are characters that don't deserve any respect whatsoever and definitely no pity. Not even Nikolay, inspite of what he eventually turns out to be, although you could see that coming a mile off. The relationship that develops between Anna and Semyon is too conviniently comfortable to advance certain plot points. If Semyon could hurt Nikolay and Anna's uncle, why not Anna, considering she has incriminating evidence against him and his family? Viggo Mortenson does a terrific job with his character, conveying a tinge of fragility within a tough exterior and so does Armin Muellher-Stahl, looking both dignified and menacing. Naomi Watts is serviceable but there's a limit to what one could achieve with such a goody two shoes character. The russian underworld "rituals" are carefully detailed where a man's tattoo history is indicative of how deserving he is of a position in the upper echelons of a family. But there's just so much you could do with a pulpy premise thats so limited in scope. It would've served way better as a Jean Claude Van Damme action vehicle which would probably have distracted away from the plot rather than drawn attention to its holes.

It's quite obvious that director David Cronenberg's career had taken a turn towards mainstream critical appeal with A History of Violence. It was one of the very few of his films to receive both commercial and critical acclaim and a resurgence of sorts for a director whose only previous success happened to be The Fly in mid 80's. There were few takers, even in the critical realm, for his bizzarely intelligent psychological guts n gore horrors like Videodrome and The Brood. Eastern Promises follows in the vein of A History of Violence. It flows smoother than the latter but takes considerably less risks and has a happy ending of sorts that's both bland and ridiculous. It's also a film that has received widespread acclaim which would sadly mean the end of the road for the kind of films his fans have grown to admire. I didn't much like either Crash or The Naked Lunch, but I'll take those over this calculated morally divisive crap any day.