“JUST THE DRIVER”

By Raymond Benson

Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg has always managed to push the envelope with nearly every one of his striking pieces of work since he appeared on the scene in the mid-1970s. Known at first as primarily a director of unique “body-horror” films (The Brood, 1979, or The Fly; 1986), Cronenberg spread his wings in the 1990s and moved away from the genre to tackle more dramatic and varied subjects. His 2007 crime picture about the Russian mafia operating in London, Eastern Promises, stands as a milestone title in the director’s filmography.

Kino Lorber Classics has released a superb 2-disk (4K Ultra and Blu-ray) package of the film, and the results are impressive. The picture quality is so sharp and clear that it could be used as a demonstration product for high definition televisions.

Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts) is a British-Russian who lives with her parents, Helen and Stepan (Sinéad Cusack, and filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowsky in an acting role). Stepan is an ex-KGB officer, and the family emigrated to the U.K. some years ago. Anna works as a midwife in a London hospital, where she treats a teenage Russian girl who dies in childbirth. The girl has a diary, written in Russian, as well as a business card for a well-known Russian restaurant. Anna is determined to find the girl’s family so that the baby can have a proper home. She visits the restaurant and meets the manager, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), but he is really an elderly but powerful Russian mafia chief. Semyon has a brash and reckless son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), who runs brothels in London stocked with women trafficked from Russia. The family’s bodyguard/chauffeur is Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). He is a formidable killer who insists he’s “just the driver,” and yet there is something good inside Nikolai that transcends his menace. As Anna digs deeper into the mystery, she discovers the truth about the organized crime going on in her city, and she also develops a dangerous mutual attraction with Nikolai. When Kirill authorizes a hit on a rival Chechen gangster without Semyon’s approval, a war between the two groups ensues, and Anna and her parents are caught in the middle.

Eastern Promises, written by Steven Knight, is one of the better organized crime pictures ever made. Cronenberg and Knight seriously did a deep-dive into the realism of the piece, and star Mortensen went so far as to hang out with real Russian mafia soldiers to learn the lingo and especially study the all-important tattoos that adorn the men’s bodies.

Viggo Mortensen is fabulous in his portrayal and he was Oscar-nominated for his efforts. For this reviewer’s money, he should have won (Daniel Day-Lewis scored the trophy for There Will Be Blood). For the fight scene in the bath house alone, in which an entirely nude Mortensen fights two clothed men armed with knives, the actor deserved every accolade on the planet. The sequence is the centerpiece of the film, and it’s one of the best directed and choreographed fight scenes of the last twenty years.

Watts is terrific, as always, and Mueller-Stahl delivers a chilling turn, too. However, the movie belongs to Mortensen and to director Cronenberg.

For Kino Lorber’s HDR Dolby Vision Master of the movie, Peter Suschitzky approved and color graded his own cinematography. It looks simply marvelous. There are several short vintage featurettes included as supplements, also in HD: interviews with writer Knight and director Cronenberg; a piece on the tattoos and their significance; and looks at the bath house scene and Naomi Watts’ motorcycle riding, plus two theatrical trailers and other Kino Lorber trailers.

Eastern Promises is for fans of riveting crime dramas, the films of David Cronenberg, actor Viggo Mortensen, and actress Naomi Watts. Highly recommended.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON