I just saw it and its not great. Its mediocre. I cant believe people praise this, like reading the first review at IMDb where some fool compares it to the works of Dostoyevsky. I mean... what kind of drugs are you on while you watch this film because I want them! Its about as subtle and layered as a sledgehammer. Characters ripped off almost entirely from the Godfather and a host of other gangster films. OK, so it also tries to show a new, rough, gritty side of London. Well, I live in London and... well, that's just a joke. Throwing bodies in the Thames, great idea. Added for effect is lots of rain and perfectly lit, characters. No, in real London Russian ex-KGB guys gets poisoned with plutonium. In this film some Arsenal fan gets his throat slit cut with a knife. Big deal. Not very shocking at all, David. Viggo-balls, fake immigrant accents and saving babies at the riverside does not make a film! And Vincent Cassel, what the hell is he doing in this? Everything about him is FRENCH. I can't possibly imagine him as a Russian. First off, I thought he was speaking french. And then I realised he was trying to do Russian. But then he did English as well. Because all Russians here in London speak half-English, half-Russian. Eh.... no, they speak Russian. ALL THE TIME. The only time they resort to English is when they need to tell the bouncer in front of the night club that their dad owns about half of russias oil and he will buy his house and burn his kids if he doesn't put them in the VIP section with 50 bottles of vodka. Cronenberg has set out with an unfinished script, and completely miscast this movie and the result is a mediocre gangster story set in a "real" London that truly should only belong one place - in his head.
Review of Eastern Promises
