I had a hard time explaining what I thought of Eastern Promises. Then I went back to watch the review from Ebert and Roeper and they summed it up perfectly as a “weirdly formulaic genre piece.” There’s a lot of great stuff here, including the performances by Viggo Mortensen and Armin Mueller-Stahl and some stylish scenes of graphic violence, all trapped in a very straight-forward Russian mob genre flick.

I loved Mortensen as a driver and more for the Russian mob in London. Now that he has Golden Globe and SAG nominations it appears I’m not alone. He’s chillingly cold at first, then we see a bit of warmth and morality in him. And I don’t think we can underestimate the shower fight scene, which all at once is compelling, horrifically violent, and, yes, entertaining. It may be the best scene of the year and one great scene can be golden; just ask Jennifer Hudson whose Oscar is probably thanks to one show-stopping scene. I also have an Uzbek co-worker who says he did a pretty good job with his accent while speaking in Russian.

Mueller-Stahl is the opposite, starting friendly then turning manipulative and evil. I also liked Vincent Cassel as the son of the boss and his subplot where he either loves Mortensen’s character or wants him offed. Their relationship is probably the most unique plot point in the film.

But it’s all so distressingly straight-forward. I kept waiting for the plot to take an exciting turn and it never did. As Jared said, it’s like they came up with the interesting characters and scenes then just threw a plot together. The dialogue is often way too expository to the point that it sounds unnatural. It’s a mostly decent movie with brilliant parts that add up to a good film, but I just wish there was more. It will certainly appeal to movie buffs who can appreciate separate components of a film but it might fall short for a moviegoer who just wants to enjoy a well-spun yarn.