Eastern Promises (2007)

Eastern Promises stops so suddenly that you’ll check whether your stream froze. Up to that point it’s a cold, tight crime story about the Russian mob in London, seen through a midwife who refuses to let a diary go. Naomi Watts is good as Anna, but the script mostly has her ask questions and get warned off. The movie belongs to Viggo Mortensen. His Nikolai is a driver who talks in short, flat sentences and keeps you guessing about whose side he’s on. Armin Mueller-Stahl is chilling as a sweet grandpa type who runs a restaurant and a lot more, and Vincent Cassel plays his son Kirill as a sad, reckless mess. David Cronenberg keeps it to 100 minutes and stages one fight scene people still bring up. It made $56.1 million worldwide on a reported $27M. An 8.3 because Mortensen is unforgettable and the story quits right when it gets going. $554 says you start answering questions in Nikolai’s slow, flat voice by Thursday, and nobody in your house finds it as cool as you do.

What works: Viggo Mortensen’s quiet, unreadable Nikolai is one of the great crime performances, and Armin Mueller-Stahl makes kindness feel like a threat.

What doesn’t: Naomi Watts is stuck asking questions for most of the film, and the ending arrives so abruptly that the story feels cut off mid-sentence.

Who it’s for: Grown-up crime fans who like slow-burn tension, quiet menace and a lead performance that does most of its work without words.