Eastern Promises

Viggo Mortensen's new starrer 'Eastern Promises' makes more promises than it lives up to. Set in London, it casts Viggo as a driver working for Russian Mafia in London. And, for a driver, he seems quite well informed and his claim to stardom in the movie comes from his proximity to the King's son, Kirill played by Vincent Cassell.

The movie starts with a 14 year old pregnant girl who delivers a baby girl and dies during child birth and leaves behind a diary written in Russian. Naomi Watts stars as Anna Ivanakova, the mid-wife that delivers the baby and attempts to find her relatives by looking for clues from the diary. In the process she ends up at the doorstep of a fine eastern european restauarant run by a suave fatherly figure played superbly by Armin Meuller-Stahl, who also happens to head local Russian mafia.

There is a bathroom action sequence showing off Viggo Mortensen's body and his russian mafia life tattoed all over his body. And, the movie could have used more similar action sequences. Instead, the movie, starting with an exciting premise, the movie drags on and ends predictably.

I'd give the movie a rating of 3 to 3.5 out of 5. And, would recommend viewers to wait for the DVD to come out, unless they are die hard fans of Viggo Mortensen.