Synopsis: When a sex slave Russian teenager dies during childbirth at a London hospital, a midwife there (Naomi Watts) tries to contact her family through info found in the girl’s diary. This throws Watts into the middle of Russian mafia business that ultimately puts her in grave danger. Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn from Lord of the Rings) stars as a driver/corpse disposer for the mafia that takes a liking towards Watts and tries to help her.
My take: Not only is this a good mafia story, but it also has some Blue Velvet-like elements to it – the innocent Watts ends up involved in some ugly mafia business because she is unable to stifle her curiosity (and believe me, she has plenty of opportunities to drop the matter). Some nice twists along the way, I feel this is a solid film from Cronenberg, far superior to his previous, A History of Violence. Viggo does an amazing acting job here in an Oscar-nominated role (he should have won). Because of the mafia angle and because it is Cronenberg, there is a satisfying amount of throat slitting and similar gory bits.
Favorite scene: Even though I didn’t like seeing Viggo’s junk flapping all over the place, the big fight scene in the steam baths where he takes on two hitmen fully nude is pretty cool. One of them takes a knife in the eye, that was enough to make me cringe.
3 out of 4 Zombie Faces
No comments:
Post a Comment