History Film / EasternPromises

* UnresolvedSexualTension: Between Anna and Nikolai. [[spoiler: They do kiss each other goodbye in the end though, but that's all]].

* WhamLine: [[spoiler: In the end his father came down. It was the father who raped me.]] And depending on exactly when it clicks that [[spoiler: Nikolei is undercover,]] any part of his conversation with the senior officer will count.

* TheCastShowOff: Armin Mueller-Stahl has played the violin since he was a teenager, and he does for real when Semyon shows his granddaughters how it's done.

* TheCastShowOff: Armin Mueller-Stahl has played violin since he was a teenager, and he does for real when Semyon shows his granddaughters how it's done.

* GrayEyes: Nikolei is a textbook case of the "cold, strong-willed and unapproachable" variety. [[spoiler: The discovery that he's undercover and has probably done a lot more IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten acts than we see on-screen also fits the "ideas above people" mentality aspect of the trope]].

** Stepan even implies that Anna had a miscarriage because she and her ex-boyfriend were not the same race.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: An understandably upset Anna leaves the dinner table after her uncle Stepan implies that she had a miscarriage because she and her ex-boyfriend were not the same race.

* UnresolvedSexualTension: Between Anna and Nikolai. [[spoiler: They do kiss each other goodbye in the end though, but that's it]].

The story revolves around Anna (NaomiWatts), a midwife at a London hospital, who discovers a diary belonging to a teenage girl who died during childbirth. Her efforts to translate the diary and thus find a family for the girl's baby end up embroiling her with a powerful figure in [[TheMafiya the Russian Mafia]] and the human trafficking and prostitution trade.

* PoliceAreUseless: They don't play a major part in the film, but while the officer played by [[Series/GameOfThrones Donald Sumpter]] seems competent, they do make a horrendous mistake (see TooDumbToLive). [[spoiler: It's questionable whether the undercover Nikolai counts as "police" or not, but if he does, he sure as hell isn't useless.]]

* PoliceAreUseless: They don't play a major part in the film, but while the officer played by [[GameOfThrones Donald Sumpter]] seems competent, they do make a horrendous mistake (see TooDumbToLive). [[spoiler: It's questionable whether the undercover Nikolai counts as "police" or not, but if he does, he sure as hell isn't useless.]]

The story revolves around Anna (NaomiWatts), a midwife at a London hospital, who discovers a diary belonging to a teenage girl who died during childbirth. Her efforts to translate the diary and thus find a family for the girl's baby end up embroiling her with a powerful figure in the Russian Mafia and the human trafficking and prostitution trade.

* {{Lzherusskie}}: See FakeNationality above.

* FakeNationality: The film stars Russians played by: A Danish-American (Nikolai's Viggo Mortensen), a Frenchman (Kirill's Vincent Cassell), a German (Semyon's Armin-Mueller Stahl), and a Pole (Stepan's Jerzy Skolimowski). Anna, half-English and half-Russian, is played by the British-Australian Naomi Watts.

* {{Badass}}: Nikolai. Notable badassery includes the bathhouse scene and [[spoiler:joining the ''vory v zakone'' as an infiltrator. By the end of the film he's become Kiril's second-in-command.]] The Chechen brother who pulled a knife out of his own chest to keep attacking also deserves a mention.

* ThickerThanWater: Played straight by Semyon [[spoiler: in regards to Kirill. He may mistreat his useless gay son, but he protects him nevertheless. On the other hand he orders his infant daughter disposed of. Subverted by Kirill when he chooses Nikolai over Semyon.]]

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: However badly he might treat Kirill, Semyon clearly cares for him a lot, ([[spoiler: enough to set up a very useful employee to be killed in his son's place]],) and the family's displays of affection for each other, especially for the children, do not seem to be faked.

'''''Eastern Promises''''' is a 2007 crime drama by DavidCronenberg.

* FanDisservice: In classic DavidCronenberg fashion, Nikolai's sex with the prostitute is intentionally made as unappealing as possible, with Kirill ''watching''.

* MinionWithAnFInEvil: Kirill. Heartbreaking rather than humorous. While he does partake in some rather nasty business it's implied that this, among [[{{Gayngster}} other things,]] is what makes him such a [[TheAlcoholic wreck.]]. [[spoiler: And he can't bring himself to drown the baby.]]

* FakeNationality: The film stars Russians played by: A Danish-American (Nikolai's Viggo Mortensen), a Frenchman (Kirill's Vincent Cassell), a German (Semyon's Armin-Mueller Stahl), and a Pole (Stepan's Jerzy Skolimowski). Anna, an Englishwoman of Russian descent, is played by the British-Australian Naomi Watts.

* AffablyEvil: Semyon seems like a friendly and completely benign old restaurant owner at first. He's not.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler: Kirill can't kill Christine's baby, who is, to be fair, his half-sister.]]

* AmbiguouslyGay: While the movie produces more HoYay that you could shake a stick at, Kirill is never explicitly shown to be gay. A mobster lets loose a rumour that he might be gay but right before that we get a scene of him in his father's brothel and he seems to be enjoying himself by all accounts.
** Just before he freaks out and demands Nikolai sleep with a prostitute...while he watches. Can we say 'projection?'
* AsYouKnow: There are a couple of times when things in the Mafia's world are explained to either Nikolei or Anna. There's also the time when [[spoiler: the senior officer spells out in great detail to any audience members who haven't got it yet that Nikolei is undercover, but since he does it in a tone that suggests he's quoting his own officially-worded orders, he gets away with it.]]
* {{Badass}}: Nikolai. Notable badassery includes the bathhouse scene and [[spoiler:joining the ''vory v zakone'' as an infiltrator. By the end of the film he's poised to replace Semyon as the boss.]]
** The Chechen brother who pulled a knife out of his own chest to keep attacking also deserves a mention.

* BlatantLies: Kirill's assertions that it was his idea for Nikolei to be [[spoiler: invited to become a full member of the family]] are ''really'' unconvincing.
* ChessMotifs: [[spoiler:"You cannot become king while king is still in place."]]
** Nikolai shares a last name, Luzhin, with a famous chessmaster in the Creator/VladimirNabokov novel ''The Defense''.

* DeathByChildbirth

* EnigmaticMinion: Nikolei is very difficult to read, and the camera spends a lot of time focussed on his face, after or during various events, as if inviting the audience to try and decipher what he's thinking.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: However badly he might treat Kirill, Semyon clearly cares for him a lot, ([[spoiler: enough to set up a very useful employee to be killed in his son's place]],) and the family's displays of affection for each other, especially for the children, does not seem to be faked.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler: Kirill won't kill the baby.]]

* FakingTheDead: Semyon orders Nikolai to [[DeadlyEuphemism take care of]] Stepan. [[spoiler: When Nikolai follows him home and Stepan goes missing, everyone starts assuming Nikolai killed him. Nikolai--being the ReverseMole--really just sends him to Edinburgh.]]

* InfantImmortality: [[spoiler: Played straight]]

* LawOfInverseFertility: Tatiana [[spoiler: was a virgin 14-year-old getting raped by an old man - presumably just once - and they even gave her morning-after pills. Still, she gives birth to a baby and dies.]]

* TheMafiya: This is one of the few good looks at the Russian mob in Western cinema.

* PoliceAreUseless: They don't play a major part in the film, but while the officer played by [[GameOfThrones Donald Sumpter]] seems competent, they do make a horrendous mistake (see TooDumbToLive). [[spoiler: It's questionable whether the undercover Nikolei counts as "police" or not, but if he does, he sure as hell isn't useless.]]
* RacistGrandma: Or Uncle
** Anna's mother also lets her own racism slip out, though more subtly than Stepan; while Stepan is proclaiming that Anna's ex-boyfriend left because black men always run away, Anna's mother defends him by saying "[[YouAreACreditToYourRace He was a doctor, Stepan]]" before Anna angrily stops her going any further.

* SlashedThroat: A [[{{Gorn}} particularly graphic example]] about two-minutes into the film, in which the assailant uses a razor to ''saw'' through the victim's neck.
** A somewhat cleaner example later, [[spoiler: used against the aforementioned assailant]].

* TooDumbToLive: Anna [[spoiler: in the scene where she, all alone, goes the Russian mob HQ to broadcast the incriminating information she has on the boss, antagonizing the notoriously aggressive and unstable Kirill.]]
** The police are also bloody idiots for [[spoiler: openly taking the blood of an experienced criminal like Semyon and not thinking that he might work out what they were hoping to do and strike against the baby first]].

* WhamLine: [[spoiler: In the end his father came down. It was the father who raped me.]]
** Depending on exactly when it clicks that [[spoiler: Nikolei is undercover,]] any part of his conversation with the senior officer will count.

* WouldHurtAChild: Semyon would, [[spoiler: Kirill won't, or at least spends so much time agonising over it that he ends up not having to go through with it]].
** Even though Kirill was willing to hurt the 14-year old Tatiana, the fact that [[spoiler: he was incapable of actually raping her despite trying to]] could be interpreted as some vestige of this, or it could simply be that his probable homosexuality or constant drunkenness was the problem, and he didn't actually consider a 14 year old to still be a child.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eastern_promises_175x252.jpg

''Eastern Promises'' is a 2007 crime drama by DavidCronenberg. It received extremely positive reviews from critics, and is noted for its effective depiction of the [[TheMafiya Russian Mafia]] and ViggoMortensen's performance as the mobster Nikolai Luzhin, which earned him a Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards.