Thursday, October 9, 2014

Eastern Promises (2007)


So you've read the diary. How can you keep doing what you're doing?”
“I'm just a driver.”

            A young pregnant girl is brought into the hospital where Anna Ivanova (Naomi Watts) is a doctor. Unfortunately the girl dies but her baby daughter lives. Anna finds the girl’s diary among her few possessions she had on her. The girl’s name was Tatiana and she was fourteen years old. Tatiana’s body looks horrible with bruises and track marks and marks of neglect all over her. Anna is determined to find the girl’s family. The diary is written in Russian. At first Anna goes to her Russian uncle but he is hesitant to translate it. Anna found a card for a Russian restaurant in the diary so she takes it there and asks the owner if he knew the girl and if he could translate it for her.
            The restaurant owner Semyon is not a nice man. He part of a dangerous Russian mafia in London. His son Kirill runs around town doing whatever he pleases drinking all day and going to prostitutes. Kirill is driven around by another Russian named Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). Nikolai acts as Kirill’s bodyguard as well making sure nothing bad happens to him and that he is kept out of serious trouble. Nikolai sees Anna come out of the restaurant and talks to her about the motorcycle she rides.
            Anna’s uncle eventually translates the diary and tells his niece that Tatiana had been in a bad situation and had been raped. She had been raped by Semyon who then, along with his son, repeatedly shot her up with heroine. Semyon has also read the diary. He orders Nikolai to take care of the uncle.
            There is more to the story but I do not want to give too much away.

            Eastern Promises was alright. My two youngest brothers love the movie. The youngest one is fifteen and he was watching the movie with one of his friends. I was heading downstairs to my dad’s office to work on some papers and I heard a voice that was very familiar. The Russian voiceover belonged to Tatiana Maslany. I knew she was attached to Eastern Promises. I thought she was actually in the movie but she was just a voiceover with a different girl playing the character of Tatiana at the beginning. It was cool to hear her voice especially because one of the characters she plays on Orphan Black is Ukrainian which to my ear sounds very close to Russian. I thought the story would be more interesting than it was and that there would be a little more action. There was one scene where Viggo Mortensen fights naked in a bathhouse and that was the only action scene. To me Eastern Promises was dull. I cannot see why my brothers love it so much and they have seen movies that are lot better than this story wise. 

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