Director David Cronenberg remains in the real world for Eastern Promises, teaming up once again with his A History of Violence star Viggo Mortensen for another meditation on criminal brutality. Eastern Promises, in which Mortensen plays a cleanup man for London’s Russian Mafia, doesn’t have the mythical pull of History, yet Cronenberg is too accomplished and clever of a filmmaker to let this gangster tale seem rote. Without even one fantastical, bug-like creature, he still makes you feel squeamish and icky. With Naomi Watts – largely wasted as a nurse who gets caught up in this underworld – and a harrowing fight/nude scene for Mortensen (it’s something like the infamous wrestling match in Borat, only deadlier).
