The mysterious and charismatic Russian-born Nikolai Luzhin (Viggo Mortensen) is a driver for one of London's most notorious organized crime families of Eastern European origin. The family itself is part of the Vory V Zakone criminal brotherhood. Headed by Semyon (Academy Award nominee Armin Mueller-Stahl), whose courtly charm as the welcoming proprietor of the plush Trans-Siberian restaurant impeccably masks a cold and brutal core, the family's fortunes are tested by Semyon's volatile son and enforcer, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), who is more tightly bound to Nikolai than to his own father.

But Nikolai's carefully maintained existence is jarred once he crosses paths at Christmastime with Anna Khitrova (Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts), a midwife at a North London hospital. Anna is deeply affected by the desperate situation of a young teenager who dies while giving birth to a baby. Anna resolves to try to trace the baby's lineage and relatives. The girl's personal diary also survives her; it is written in Russian, and Anna seeks answers in it. Anna's mother Helen (Sinéad Cusack) does not discourage her, but Anna's irascible Russian-born uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski) urges caution. He is right to do so; by delving into the diary, Anna has accidentally unleashed the full fury of the Vory. With Semyon and Kirill closing ranks and Anna pressing her inquiries, Nikolai unexpectedly finds his loyalties divided. The family tightens its grip on him; who can, or should, he trust? Several lives - including his own - hang in the balance as a harrowing chain of murder, deceit, and retribution reverberates through the darkest corners of both the family and London itself.

I think every moviegoer and film lover has a type of movie or genre that they especially like. Sometimes as we get older that genre may change and we may find ourselves liking another genre and not caring for the one we had previously loved. I don’t know if I was always a fan of the gangster/mafia genre but this is a particular type of film that I do really love. It is dark and it is gritty and it can raise up a villain and change them into the hero. We shouldn’t be cheering for a villain, but in well-done mafia films the villain is the anti-hero he is the central character of the film. When done well you find yourself rooting for the bad guy, villains are more compelling because for many of us they unleash the dark side that most of would never let free. They are uninhibited, they take what they want and be darned the consequences. It’s a sense of freedom most people will never have and never understand and that’s why they are so appealing, why they are so intriguing and that’s why I find myself cheering for the villain more than I do the hero.

When done right like in Eastern Promises, granted there is a twist in the end, you can make a villain into one of the most memorable characters in all of film. From Darth Vader to Michael Corleone these are characters seem larger than the films they are in. Viggo Mortensen’s Nikolai Luzhin is such a character. The film is still good and you can’t but help yourself being drawn into that underworld of Russian mafia but it is Nikolai that sets the tone for the film. He is what you remember and what makes the film so good. It is one of those characters that defines the film and what makes you want to see the movie over and over.

I am liking the recent trend of moving away from all the Italian Mafia movies and actually exploring other types of organized crime. We are seeing an American Gangster next month about a Black mob boss and we got a glimpse into the Russian Mafia. That was the one thing that saddened me about the film is that I would have liked more than just a glimpse. The painstaking detail they went to get the tattoos together just sets a tone for the film and makes you want to know more about this hidden society. It’s something you so rarely see in films and just as interesting as the Italians, so why not give us more films like Eastern Promises.

Viggo Mortensen is an actor that has been around a long time to suddenly find himself shot into the stratosphere with one role, that of Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings. All of a sudden an actor who had been toiling in Hollywood for fifteen years became a household name. They tried to sell him as a big blockbuster actor in films like Hidalgo which failed but this is where he feels like he belongs. In more gritty, tough and less sellable movies. This is an actor who toiled for a long time and knows his craft but he’s never going to be that pretty boy big name actor that will sell tickets. Instead he is an actor that if you put him in your film will just make it that much better for doing so. Outside of Viggo and Naomi Watts this film isn’t supporting a big name cast and that’s ok because the film is about Viggo’s character Nikolai and he is the one that makes the movie so incredibly fun to watch.

Grade: A