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100The actors and the characters merge and form a reality above and apart from the story, and the result is a film that takes us beyond crime and London and the Russian mafia and into the mystifying realms of human nature.
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100One of Cronenberg's subtlest, most insinuating pictures, and one of the highlights of the year so far.
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91Cronenberg has, as Guillermo del Toro did in "Pan's Labyrinth," crafted both a drama and a fairy tale -- and he's done it in an entertainment as cracking as you could wish for.
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Cronenberg and screenwriter Steve Knight masterfully orchestrate an atmosphere of danger and dread for a descent into an underworld inhabited by the Russian mafia in London.
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90A dark and mesmerizing immersion into a distinctive world.
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90A rhapsodic movie directed with considerable formal intelligence and brooding power from an original screenplay by Steve Knight, Eastern Promises is very much a companion to "A History of Violence."
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90The rigor of Mr. Cronenberg's direction sometimes seems at odds with the humanism of Mr. Knight's script, but more often the director's ruthless formal command rescues the story from its maudlin impulses. Mr. Knight aims earnestly for your heartstrings, but Mr. Cronenberg insists on getting under your skin. The result is a movie whose images and implications are likely to stay in your head for a long time.
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90David Cronenberg's elegant treatise on the metaphysics of violence.
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90A superbly wrought yarn set in the milieu of first-generation Russian mobsters in London that is simultaneously tough-minded and compassionate about the human condition, Eastern Promises instantly takes its place among David Cronenberg's very best films.
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90Viggo Mortensen's performance is flat-out brilliant, and this relentlessly dramatic thriller represents a mid-life growth spurt for its director, David Cronenberg.
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90Cronenberg's follow-up to "A History of Violence" -- starring the same lead, Viggo Mortensen, in a very different part -- lacks the theoretical dimension of its predecessor, but it's no less masterful in its fluid storytelling and shocking choreography of violence.
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89It's Cronenberg's film, but it's the actors who elevate Eastern Promises from mere thriller to some other, more disturbing plane.
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88In Eastern Promises, shot to envelop by the great Peter Suschitzky, Cronenberg brings us face to face with the horror of self.
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88An unusually strong crime thriller, Eastern Promises comes from director David Cronenberg, a meticulous old-school craftsman of a type that is becoming increasingly rare.
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88Even with his clothes on, this is Mortensen's best and richest performance, worthy of serious awards consideration. He lends a moral complexity to Eastern Promises that makes it much more than just a very accomplished action thriller.
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88An icily seductive parable about family, power, unconventional justice and the perils of answered prayers.
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88This is the first time, though, his (Mortensen)performance seemed so much bigger than the film surrounding it. That he manages the feat with so few wasted gestures puts him in line with the greats.
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83The restraint of both director and actor makes this steely gangster drama reverberate long after it ends. This kind of mystery is rare in a film culture that demands answers before the credits roll.
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80A genuinely engrossing film.
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80Expertly realized and gunmetal slick, Eastern Promises whirs along with perfect efficiency, but doesn't stir much in the way of visceral horror despite its penchant for treating the human body like a chicken carcass on a block. (Squeamishness, yes.)
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80Cronenberg's deeper purpose is to pull audiences into an affecting, powerful story about right and wrong.
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75Here is an excellent crime thriller made with grown-ups in mind: Yep, it must definitely be fall.
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75The first must-see adult film of the young fall.
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75The violence here is never in the service of spectacle, always of the story.
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75A thoroughly entertaining film by a director at the height of his ability.
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75Eastern Promises has a compelling story and strong performances to back up what may seem excessive or sensationalistic.
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75What it doesn't have is the resonance of Cronenberg's "A History of Violence," a film that exploited the same genre even while transcending its limitations. Eastern Promises delivers, but not on that scale.
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75It's an academic meditation in underworld-thriller drag -- a movie that looks about as close to a straight-ahead, down-and-dirty genre entertainment as anything the director has made since his exploding-head horror days.
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75An engaging thriller done in the Cronenberg style is still worth anyone's time. And this one boasts memorable turns from Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Vincent Cassel.
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70It's engrossing, and Mueller-Stahl's mix of Old World chivalry and murderousness is scarier than Jason and Freddy combined.
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70Cronenberg made a movie called "The Dead Zone," and I sometimes wonder whether, for all his formal brilliance, he has ever torn himself away from that locked-in, airless state of mind. You walk out of Eastern Promises feeling spooked and sullied, as if waking from a noisome dream.
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67Cronenberg has a distinctive style – deadpan absurdism laced with fright and all executed with slow deliberation. But too much of Eastern Promises is cultish and silly.
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60Mortensen shines but a contrived, issue-driven plot destabilises what could have been a great Russian gangster movie.
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50Eastern Promises is a jumbled string of mob-related clichés that mesh into something that's derivative and at times uninteresting.
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50Eastern Promises is intensely anti-dramatic.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 67 out of 90
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Mixed: 6 out of 90
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Negative: 17 out of 90
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