Review: Midwife gets entangled with the Russian mob in 'Promises'

Photo of Mick LaSalle
In this photo provided by Focus Features, Viggo Mortensen (left) and Naomi Watts (right) star in "Eastern Promises." (AP Photo/Focus Features/ Peter Mountain)

POLITE APPLAUSEEastern Promises: Thriller. Starring Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Vincent Cassel. Directed by David Cronenberg. (R. 100 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

A man sits in a London barber's chair in the first scene of "Eastern Promises," and because David Cronenberg directed the movie, the only question is exactly how he'll end up in a pool of blood. Cronenberg gives the audience just enough time to guess - and just enough time to wonder how the victim doesn't guess - when the straight-edge razor is produced, the throat is cut, the feet start kicking, etc.

That opening sets in motion one important strain in this tightly plotted and economically told film. The next begins in a drugstore, where a teenage girl shows up asking for help. She's pregnant - and hemorrhaging, of course - and is rushed to Trafalgar hospital, where we meet Anna (Naomi Watts), a midwife. The mother dies, and a baby is born (covered in blood). No one knows the dead mother's identity, but she's left a diary, in Russian, and a business card for a restaurant. With these clues, Anna sets out on what she expects will be an innocent quest to find out the dead woman's name and next of kin.

Two things need to be said about the first minutes of "Eastern Promises." Cronenberg has too much self-awareness and too much of a place in the public mind not to know that he's "doing a Cronenberg." He is announcing himself, and it's as obvious, say, as beginning a Scorsese movie with Frank Vincent's getting pummeled with a shovel. And yet - the big "and yet" - these are not merely shock tactics. As with Hitchcock, Cronenberg's self-awareness (even to the point of self-parody) can't disguise a genuine, unmistakable and endlessly fetching case of neurosis.

His vision is helplessly keyed into the physical. Things everyone else finds easy to ignore - the fact, for example, that social, public and even spiritual life depends on the maintenance of physical existence, that everything, in a sense, runs on blood - are things he can't forget and doesn't let us forget. So we have a midwife, who is up to the elbows in the bloody business of welcoming life. And she goes to meet Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), who unbeknownst to her, is up to his elbows in death. On the surface, an amiable and paternal restaurateur, he is a powerful underworld figure, and he immediately recognizes that diary for what it is - a threat to himself and his empire.

That empire includes Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai, a Russian chauffeur. This is Mortensen and Cronenberg's second collaboration - the first was "A History of Violence" - and it's turning into a beautiful friendship. Mortensen's aura, here and elsewhere, suggests an acceptance and a familiarity with the absolute worst. He's at home with the very things that Cronenberg obsesses on. For most scenes, Cronenberg matches Mortensen with Vincent Cassel, who plays the mob boss' drunken son. Putting these two in the same frame is sheer inspiration. They're the same height and the same coloring; they're roughly the same age, and Cassel is ugly-handsome in the way that Mortensen is handsome.

Cassel's menacing looks have caused him to be tapped to play self-assured villains in his American films. But he gets to do more here, playing a villain who is dangerous precisely because he's insecure and afraid to reveal himself. The result is Cassel's best English-language performance.

Though the movies have different authors - Steven Knight ("Amazing Grace") wrote this one - "Eastern Promises" and "A History of Violence" share a family resemblance beyond the casting of Mortensen in a central role. In terms of story, the films deal with the possible encroachment of a ruthless mob into the lives of ordinary people. In terms of storytelling, they demonstrate an expert command of narrative. Cronenberg rushes through plot material without seeming to be rushing and then buys the right to lavish time on arresting set pieces, such as a Russian Mafia initiation (in which the applicant stands virtually naked before a panel of judges) and a gruesome attempted mob hit inside a steam room.

If "Eastern Promises" doesn't quite match "A History of Violence," it's because something in the denouement is lacking. It's just a little too inevitable and not quite as rich and complex as the movie might lead one to hope. But take this as no more than a quibble. "Eastern Promises" is otherwise a thoroughly entertaining film by a director at the height of his ability.

-- Advisory: Female nudity, male frontal nudity, gore and simulated sex.