Set in London, David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises is a languorously paced film narrating a sinister story of deeply troubled characters. A teenaged prostitute dies during childbirth, leaving behind a baby girl and a diary in the hands of a midwife Anna, a Russian immigrant who is recovering from a troubled relationship. But her real troubles begin when she takes the help of her uncle, a former KGB agent, to get the diary translated, so that she can locate the girl’s relatives and deliver the child to them. It pits her head on with the powerful Russian Mafia in London.

The opening sequence in a barber’s shop where a customer gets his throat slit savagely by a razor sets the morbid tone of the film, transporting the viewer into a sordid world of sleaze and sin. Central to the film is Nikolai, the chauffeur (he calls himself a driver) of the Don, a character etched with laconic panache by Viggo Mortensen. It is a towering performance by the Danish actor, for which alone the film demands repeated viewing. No fancy camera angles, no frenetic editing, no jumpy background score, the film just tells a story in the good old fashion, relying on a cleverly crafted script with plenty of jaw dropping twists and turns, to keep the viewer engaged for every second of its 100 minutes. Full of gruesome violence, the denouement is very emotionally redeeming.