Eastern Promises Movie Review

Welcome to the first ever movie review here at Sean’s Ramblings. I’ve written about movies numerous times in the past although it generally involved movie quotes, the Oscars or a debate about the genius of Kevin Costner. Anyway, over the weekend, I saw the movie “Eastern Promises” starring Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts. Although this movie has been out a few weeks, I have heard very little about it except for positive reviews from BDK on the Junkies and my friend Chris. According to the October 5-7 box office numbers, "Eastern Promises" finished 11th this weekend with slightly less than $2.1 million. Compare that to "Mr. Woodcock" that finished in 9th place earning $2.3 million. Now in its fourth week in theatres, Eastern Promises has only made about $14.5 million in cumulative gross, so this is obviously not going to be Titanic or even The Kingdom (that’s the current movie where The Rock is a quarterback who learns he has a daughter; the daughter grows up to kidnap approximately 100 Dalmatian puppies for their fur, or something like that).

Since I don’t feel like writing a summary of the movie (I’m great at this movie review thing), here’s the plot outline “borrowed” from IMDB: “The film follows the mysterious and ruthless Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), who is tied to one of London's most notorious organized crime families. His carefully maintained existence is jarred when he crosses paths with Anna (Naomi Watts), an innocent midwife trying to right a wrong, who accidentally uncovers potential evidence against the family. Now Nikolai must put into motion a harrowing chain of murder, deceit, and retribution.”

So here’s my review: “Eastern Promises” is a fantastic movie. The acting is terrific, particularly Mortensen and Armin Mueller-Stahl (I had to look up his name), who plays the head of the Russian crime family. I think both of them will earn Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively. The story certainly kept me intrigued following Watts enter this completely different world and watching Mortensen just being a bad-ass. I’m not going to give away anything regarding the plot, but I just wanted to give a warning: there are a few scenes that are extremely violent. There were audible gasps by most of the audience on one or two occasions, and one woman ran out of the theatre appearing to suppress vomiting. You really could just close your eyes or look away for five seconds. So because of her, I’m writing to highly recommend Eastern Promises, but if you are against strong brutal violence, you may want to pass.

Airplane Movies

I am heading to San Francisco next week and decided to see what movies are showing on the flight. The airline is playing “Music and Lyrics” with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore on my return trip. This seems like a perfect, mindless airplane movie for background noise, where I don’t have to think and don’t have to worry about missing something if I fall asleep. By the way, has Drew Barrymore done anything besides romantic comedies and Charlie’s Angels over the past 5-10 years? It’s hard to argue with her success and bank account, but maybe she could take on a different type of role some day. You too Hugh Grant!

The feature movie on my way to San Francisco is “The Painted Veil” starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts. I have never heard of the movie, so I looked up the movie description:

"Weary of her mother’s pressure to wed, 25-year-old Kitty abruptly accepts a proposal of marriage from an obviously smitten doctor, Walter Fane. After the wedding, the couple moves from England to Shanghai, where Walter immerses himself in his work as a bacteriologist. Kitty meets the British vice consul in Shanghai and—out of boredom—has an affair. When Walter finds out, he’s furious and demands she accompany him to a far-off village stricken with cholera."

A bacteriologist and cholera in the same movie? How did this movie not make $100 million?