Eastern Promises

OK, I've got to admit - I saw this movie uneducated. I usually read a group of reviews, then decide whether or not my precious time and money should be spent on the movie.

I went to this movie purely on the fact that Viggo Mortenson starred in it. A girl has got to have some fantasy fodder once in a while, no?

Unfortunately I spent much of the movie with my hands covering my eyes, and at times, I plugged my ears.

The review stated: "The David Cronenberg who made DEAD RINGERS, NAKED LUNCH, VIDEODROME, SCANNERS, and THE FLY has morphed into a more genre-driven, less freaky storyteller with THE HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and now EASTERN PROMISES.

"More genre-driven, less freaky" ...I could not appreciate the naked body of Mortenson crawling on his hands and knees in a bath house, as what happens before it is so violent and disturbing that I could not watch these scenes.

Perhaps it was my past association with craziness and violence that turned my stomach. I felt the movie all too graphic and disturbing for me, and the story line too predictable to justify its gratuitous use.

Perhaps Cronenberg has fun with playing with our heads like that. Beautiful people in a very ugly story. Giving us what at what first appears to be less freaky story, then twisting our heads with a snap.

Off to read my new book. I hope it is more delicate. And I hope that I sleep without nightmares.

patti