The stoic Nikolai works for restaurant owner and powerful Mafia kingpin Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and his out-of-control son Kirill (Vincent Cassel). Cronenberg adds a few generous splashes of blood-red to his otherwise deeply grey cinematic palette as the movie begins, then allows his central storyline to unfold. Midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) comes crashing into Nikolai's life after discovering the diary of a young Russian woman who dies while giving birth, and her dealings with Semyon, and a subsequent translation of the diary, provide some horrific discoveries. Anna soon finds herself floundering in an alien world full of brutal and bloody violence, and it's not long before her own life hangs perilously in the balance.

REVIEW: The work of director David Cronenberg has often gone hand in hand with controversy - he has been synonymous with visceral images of sex and violence but with A History of Violence in 2005, Cronenberg arrived in the mainstream.
Critically acclaimed and popular with cinema audiences, A History of Violence was a more thoughtful and constrained look at mafia violence.
Cronenberg continues along the same theme here, with a movie that is every bit as stunning as its predecessor, even if it hasn't had quite in the same impact in the box office.
In the first scene we are given a shocking reminder of the director's propensity for stunning us with unflinching violent images as a criminal is murdered in horrendously bloody fashion with a knife to the throat.
But from there Cronenberg takes a much more controlled study of the Russian mafia in London and it is the threat of violence and murder, much more than murder itself, that keeps us on the edge throughout 96 gripping minutes.
Naomi Watts, a midwife who accidently stumbles into the world of the Russian mob, as usual is up to the mark while Mortensen is genuinely haunting and mysterious as the chaffeur Nikolai.
I found myself on the edge of my seat as Watts becomes ever deeper entrenched into the mafia mire with mob boss Semyon an effective, brooding presence, and the ideal foil for his reckless son (Vincent Cassel).
The threat of violence is always just bubbling under the surface, and when it finally arrives, in a horrific scene when a naked Nikolai is attacked in a Turkish bath, it is genuinely shocking.
But crucially, no-one can claim this is a gratutious or glamorous portrayal of violence.
Beautifully shot by Cronenberg's cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, there is some furtive humour too, largely thanks to Mortensen's supreme performance.


VERDICT: Eastern Promises might not have been an unqualified box office success at the cinema, but don't be put off. I was gripped from the beginning and the performance of Watts and Mortenson, coupled with Cronenberg at his best, make this highly watchable.

All DVDs courtesy of Bridge Video, 149 Bridge Street, Portadown, (028) 38 334185 (opening times: Monday to Friday 4-10 o'clock, Saturday 1-10 o'clock).