Eastern Promises (2007)

Recommended

UK/Canada/USA

Feature Film
Director: David Cronenberg
Writer: Steven Knight
Cinematographer: Peter Suschitzky
Composer: Howard Shore
Cast: Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Sinead Cusack, Jerzy Skolimowski

Although the plot might not stand up to much scrutiny in terms of credibility, and there are perhaps a few too many genre clichés, Cronenberg’s London-set Russian mob film, chronicling a midwife’s attempts to find the family of a 14-year-old Russian prostitute who died in childbirth, is, thanks in the main to some cracking set-pieces and a number of noteworthy performances, never less than gripping. Iain.Stott