History Film / EasternPromises

* PerverseSexualLust: The movie is about sex trafficking, so there's a lot of this.

* 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. But then just before he freaks out and demands Nikolai sleep with a prostitute to prove that ''he's'' not gay...while Kirill watches. Can we say 'projection?' The diary also reveals that Kirill couldn't perform while trying to rape Tatiana and had to pass her off to his father, all but confirming that he is indeed closeted.

* BathhouseBlitz: Nikolai is tricked into taking Kirill's place in a meeting at the local sauna with the Chechens following Kirill's unsanctioned murder of the Chechens' brother Soyka. Nikolai arrives, undresses, and waits in the sauna room as expected. The Chechens show up seeking vengeance and attack Nikolai with knives, forcing him into a brutal fight to death.

* ChildByRape: [[spoiler: Christine]]

* DeathByChildbirth: Tatiana

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Both Semyon and Kirill are genuinely affectionate towards the younger children of the family, and Semyon (for all the abuse he gives him,) loves Kirill enough to [[spoiler: set up the vastly more competent Nikolai to be killed in his stead]].
* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler: Kirill can't kill Tatiana's baby, who is, to be fair, his half-sister. He also couldn't bring himself to rape Tatiana months before, leading Semyon to do it instead, but that's not because he has standards...it's because [[ArmoredClosetGay he's gay.]]]]

* EyeScream: [[spoiler: Nikolai stabs one of his attackers in the eye, thus ending the fight.]]
* 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 a [[TheMole mole]] -- really just told him to go to Edinburgh until things blow over.]]

** Not to mention that Nikolai's much-discussed nude scene happens during [[spoiler:a brutal two-on-one knife fight.]]

* FootballHooligans: Averted. At one point Ekrem is surrounded by supporters of an opposing football club while he loudly chants his support for Arsenal, but all they do is call him a "wanker" in good-nature. [[spoiler: The two Chechens who've blended into the crowd, however...]]
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Nikolai is awfully quick to correct Semyon on [[spoiler: what the post-USSR equivalent of the KGB is called.]]

* HeKnowsTooMuch: [[spoiler: When Semyon finds out that Stepan has read the diary, he orders Nikolai to kill him. Luckily, Nikolai's really an undercover FSB agent and makes Stepan disappear...to a five-star hotel in Edinburgh where he'll be safe until everything blows over.]]
* HitmanWithAHeart: Nikolai seems to be one. [[spoiler: It turns out he's actually undercover, and it's unclear whether he has ever actually killed anyone outside the knife fight.]]
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: Semyon. He knows the Chechens want his captain (Kirill) dead because Kirill ordered the death of one of their associates. However, he can't just let Kirill die, and he promotes Nikolai to captain so the Chechens will go after him instead; either they'll succeed in killing Nikolai (thus balancing the scales) or Nikolai will kill them (leaving that particular group with no witnesses to what happened). Nikolai does indeed survive and by the end of the movie has moved up to number two in the hierarchy instead of just being an enforcer, which puts him in a much better position to help the FSB and Scotland Yard take the organization down.]]

* IcyGrayEyes: Gray-eyed Nikolai 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]].
* IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten: [[spoiler: Nikolai is implied to have done a variety of nasty things to get where he is. Once it's revealed he's a [[TheMole mole]] all of his actions in the film such as disposing of a body and sleeping with a SexSlave are suddenly shown to have been in this trope all along.]]
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: [[spoiler: Played straight; the baby lives.]]
* InsistentTerminology: Downplayed, but when someone complains about the [=KGB=], Nikolai automatically corrects him with "[=FSB=]...they're the [=FSB=] now." [[spoiler: Which, in hindsight, is an early hint that he's undercover, and a potentially RevealingMistake that--fortunately for him--is taken in stride by his companions.]]

* IronicEcho: When Semyon sends Kirill to [[spoiler: kill Tatiana's baby, Kirill can't bring himself to do it, sobbing "She's just a little girl, papa!" This is ironic given that Semyon isn't around at the time and Kirill tried to rape Tatiana but only couldn't perform because he's gay, otherwise he would've committed an atrocity of his own against a young woman.]]
* IveComeTooFar: Nikolai's attitude towards what he's done to get where he is now, [[spoiler: though it's revealed that he's actually a good guy who's sacrificed too much to quit now, as opposed to a villain who can't go back.]]
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Uncle Stepan isn't really the friendliest guy, but he clearly cares about his family and wants to keep them out of trouble. Also, though he tried to let Tatiana's secrets be buried with her, he is outraged at the prospect of doing any sort of deal with Semyon. When Anna's mother says they should do the deal and move on because they are "ordinary people," Stepan replies by saying that Tatiana too was an ordinary person.

* LawOfInverseFertility: Tatiana [[spoiler: was a 14-year-old virgin 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.]]

* TheManBehindTheMan: By the end of the film, [[spoiler: Semyon's jailing will mean Kirill is technically in charge, but it's obvious to everyone (possibly even Kirill) that Nikolai will be calling the shots]].

* MoleInCharge: [[spoiler:Nikolai]]

* PetTheDog: In addition to Nikolai helping Anna, there's [[spoiler: Kirill crying and apologizing to the baby when he's supposed to kill her]].

* PoliceAreUseless: They don't play a major part in the film, but while the officer played by Creator/DonaldSumpter 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.]]

* RedHerring: At first it appears that Kirill is the antagonist of the film, the rapist of Tatiana, and a generally dangerous wild card who causes problems for protagonist Nikolai and ReasonableAuthorityFigure Semyon. [[spoiler: This reverses entirely when we learn that Semyon was the actual rapist, and Nikolai is actually an undercover cop trying to bring Semyon down. At this point Semyon emerges as the real villain, and Kirill's unreliability actually becomes an [[UsefulPawn asset to the protagonists.]]]]

* 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. There is a somewhat cleaner example later, [[spoiler: used against the aforementioned assailant]], with the cut being delivered by someone experienced enough to make much less of a mess.

* ThreeMonthOldNewborn: Averted. We see the baby immediately after she's been removed from her dying mother, and she can hardly be called "cute" as she's motionless, skinny, and her skin's virtually grey and covered in slime and blood. We also see the umbilical cord, (which looks like a crumpled plastic tube with stains of brown gunk,) being sealed off and tied.
* TooDumbToLive: Anna [[spoiler: in the scene where she goes all alone to the Russian mob HQ to broadcast the incriminating information she has on the boss, antagonizing the notoriously aggressive and unstable Kirill. Is it any shocker that he ends up attacking her?]]
** Earlier on (before she knows the full truth) she lets Nikolai drive her home. Getting into a car alone with a strange man is pretty stupid at the best of times, but this is after her suspicions have been raised enough for her to evade Semyon's questions about where she lives, only to then give the information to someone she knows to be Semyon's employee and whose intimidating demeanour makes her wary from the first moment she sees him.
** 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]].
** Semyon's plan to [[spoiler: give Nikolai the star tattoos so the Chechens will kill him in thinking he's Kirill]] is cunning in the short-term, but there's little long-term hope of them not realizing that their actual target is still alive, with his main bodyguard now dead. As for what actually happens, [[spoiler:Nikolai survives the fight, leaving Semyon with a proven badass wanting his head (or he would if he weren't an undercover cop,) and Kirill's fury with Semyon for setting Nikolai up being a major factor in his decision to let Semyon go to jail.]]
* UnresolvedSexualTension: Between Anna and Nikolai. [[spoiler: They do kiss goodbye in the end, but that's all]].

* WhamLine: [[spoiler: "In the end, his father came down. It was the father who raped me."]] Depending on exactly when it clicks that [[spoiler: Nikolai is an undercover FSB operative,]] 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 agonizing 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.
* WouldntHurtAChild: Nikolai's statement, [[spoiler: "We don't kill babies. This would be bad for us. Your father has gone too far," is not denied, suggesting that even most Mafiya would balk at killing a baby]].

''Eastern Promises'' is a 2007 British crime thriller film directed by Creator/DavidCronenberg and starring Creator/NaomiWatts, Creator/ViggoMortensen, Creator/VincentCassel, and Armin Mueller-Stahl.

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

The story revolves around Anna (Watts), 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 mob]] and the human trafficking and prostitution trade.

''Eastern Promises'' is a 2007 crime thriller film directed by Creator/DavidCronenberg, starring Creator/NaomiWatts, Creator/ViggoMortensen, Creator/VincentCassel, and Armin Mueller-Stahl.

[[quoteright:175:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eastern_promises_175x252.jpg]]

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

The story revolves around Anna (Creator/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 mob]] and the human trafficking and prostitution trade.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Unclear what exactly Ekrem suffers from but it appears some form of autism.

* CampingACrapper: A variation. The Chechens slash Ekrem's throat when he goes for a leak at the cemetery.

** Semyon's plan to [[spoiler: give Nikolai the star tattoos so the Chechens will kill him thinking he's Kirill]] is cunning in the short-term, but there's little long-term hope of them not realizing that their actual target is still alive, with his main bodyguard now dead. As for what actually happens [[spoiler: Nikolai survives the fight, leaving Semyon with a proven badass wanting his head (or he would if he weren't an undercover cop,) and Kirill's fury with Semyon for setting Nikolai up being a major factor in his decision to let Semyon go to jail.]]
* UnresolvedSexualTension: Between Anna and Nikolai. [[spoiler: They do kiss goodbye in the end though, but that's all]].
* TheVillainKnowsWhereYouLive: Semyon tells Anna as much when he pays her a surprise visit in the hospital to ask her for the diary. Anna actually tried to avert this earlier on; before she knew he was Mafiya but after alarm bells had gone off during his OutOfCharacterAlert moment above, Anna is evasive when Semyon asks where she lives or offers to drive her home. Unfortunately negated when her bike breaks down while it's pouring with rain, and Anna lets Nikolai drive her home.

* 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: Nikolai is an undercover FSB operative,]] 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.
* WouldntHurtAChild: Nikolai's statement that [[spoiler: "We don't kill babies. This would be bad for us. Your father has gone too far" is not denied, suggesting that even most Mafiya would balk at killing a baby]].

* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Nikolai wants to stay in the gang and become the boss. He got the star tattoos because he ''wanted to''.]]
* RuthlessForeignGangsters: The Chechen brothers take this role; Azim says they only recently arrived from the mountains, and calls them animals. However, there is little to suggest they are actually worse than Semyon's established London Mafiya, since we only see them kill in revenge for the murder of their brother (during which they are not massively sadistic or gratuitous), and they spare one of the murderers in exchange for the one who gave the order.

* TattooedCrook: Operates as a ChekhovsGun for Nikolai. It says something that while taking a break from filming by kicking back at a bar, Creator/ViggoMortensen accidentally scared several Russian immigrants into thinking he really was a member of the ''Vory V Zakone''.
* ThreeMonthOldNewborn: Averted. We see the baby immediately after she's been removed from her dying mother, and she can hardly be called "cute"; she's motionless, skinny and her skin's virtually grey and covered in slime and blood. We also see the umbilical cord, (which looks like crumpled plastic tube with stains of brown gunk,) being sealed off and tied.
* TooDumbToLive: Anna [[spoiler: in the scene where she, all alone, goes to the Russian mob HQ to broadcast the incriminating information she has on the boss, antagonizing the notoriously aggressive and unstable Kirill. Is it any shocker that he ended up attacking her?]]
** Earlier on (before she knows the full truth) she lets Nikolai drive her home. Getting into a car alone with a strange man is pretty stupid at the best of times, but this is after her suspicions have been raised enough for her to evade Semyon's questions about where she lives, only to then give the information to someone she knows to be Semyon's employee and whose intimidating demeanour made her wary from the first moment she saw him.

** Semyon's plan to [[spoiler: give Nikolai the star tattoos so the Chechens will kill him thinking he's Kirill]] is cunning in the short-term, but there's little long-term hope of them not realising that their actual target is still alive, with his main bodyguard now dead. As for what actually happens [[spoiler: Nikolai survives the fight, leaving Semyon with a proven badass wanting his head (or he would if he weren't an undercover cop,) and Kirill's fury with Semyon for setting Nikolai up being a major factor in his decision to let Semyon go to jail.]]

* RedHerring: At first it appears that Kirill is the antagonist of the film, the rapist of Tatiana and a generally dangerous wild card who causes problems for protagonist Nikolai and ReasonableAuthorityFigure Semyon. [[spoiler: This reverses entirely when we learn that Semyon was the actual rapist, and Nikolai is actually an undercover cop trying to bring Semyon down. At this point Semyon emerges as the real villain, and Kirill's unreliability actually becomes an asset to the protagonists.]]

* TheMafiya: This is one of the few good looks at the Russian Bratva in Western cinema. And in an amusing instance, Mortenson's outfit and cosmetic aids were so authentic that one day at lunch, he realized he'd unintentionally freaked out a Russian immigrant couple who took him for a real gangster. He had to introduce himself and explain the film to set them at ease. This was helped by Russian being one European language that Mortenson ''can't'' speak.
* TheManBehindTheMan: By the end of the film [[spoiler: Semyon's jailing will mean Kirill is technically in charge, but it's obvious to everyone (possibly even Kirill) that Nikolai will be calling the shots]].

* TheMole: [[spoiler:Nikolai. Not explicitly stated until late in the film, but there are [[{{Foreshadowing}} several hints]]: The somewhat irreverent attitude towards Semyon that he shows around Kirill, the letter the detective finds on Soyka's body, the prostitute he had sex with being snatched by the police, his tendency to ask questions that he gets rebuked for, and his interest in the diary.]]
* MoleInCharge: [[spoiler:Nikolai]].
* MoodSwinger: Kirill, though this is probably due to his alcoholism.

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Naomi Watts' accent slips a few times, but largely averted with the other characters.
* OutOfCharacterAlert: Semyon's cover as the benevolent restaurateur is going strong until Anna innocently mentions the diary. He instinctively falls into a more commanding and intimidating tone, and his subsequent attempts to recover his persona don't dispel the suspicions Anna gets from that momentary lapse.
* PetTheDog: In addition to Nikolai helping Anna, there's [[spoiler: Kirill crying and apologizing to the baby, when he was supposed to kill her]].

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: The Mafiya treat the possibility of Kirill being gay as disastrous, and when the police give Semyon a blood test his first thought is that they tried to poison him by using the same needle as they used on "junkies and whores and blacks and queers. Now I probably have the fucking queer disease" he says while pouring vodka over the injection site.
* RacistGrandma: Or Uncle, as the case may be. 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.
** Stepan even implies that the cause of Anna's miscarriage was that she and her ex-boyfriend were not the same race.

* AsYouKnow: There are a couple of times when things in the Mafia's world are explained to either Nikolai 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 Nikolai 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.]]
* AudienceSurrogate: Anna, an ordinary midwife, gives us a smooth introduction to the criminal underworld as she stumbles upon the Russian Mafia.

* IronicEcho: When Semyon sends Kirill to [[spoiler: kill Tatiana's baby, Kirill can't bring himself to do it, sobbing "She's just a little girl, papa!" Given that Semyon isn't around at the time and it's been established that Kirill couldn't rape Tatiana (with Semyon doing it instead), that's probably what he was thinking when it happened.]]
* IveComeTooFar: Nikolai's attitude towards what he's done to get where he is now. [[spoiler: Though it's revealed that he's actually a good guy who's sacrificed too much to quit now, as opposed to a villain who can't go back.]]
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Uncle Stepan isn't really the friendliest guy, but he clearly cares about his family and wants to keep them out of trouble. Also, though he tried to let Tatiana's secrets be buried with her, he is outraged at the prospect of doing any sort of deal with Semyon. When Anna's mother says they should do the deal and move on because they are "ordinary people", Stepan replies by saying the same about Tatiana.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: Semyon. He knows the Chechens want his captain (Kirill) dead because Kirill ordered the death of one of their associates. However, he can't just let Kirill die, and promotes Nikolai to captain so the Chechens will go after him instead; either they'll succeed in killing Nikolai (thus balancing the scales) or Nikolai will kill them (leaving that particular group with no witnesses to what happened). Nikolai does indeed survive, and by the end of the movie has moved up to number two in the hierarchy instead of just being an enforcer, which puts him in a much better position to help the FSB and Scotland Yard take the organization down.]]

* HumanTraffickers: The [[TheMafiya Vory y Zakone]] syndicate has been importing Russian girls into the west to be forced into prostitution. The plot is kicked off when a pregnant 14-year old girl runs away and dies in childbirth after she was raped by the chapter's boss.
* IcyGrayEyes: Gray-eyed Nikolai 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]].

* InsistentTerminology: downplayed, but when someone complains about the [=KGB=], Nikolai automatically corrects him with "[=FSB=]... they're the [=FSB=] now." [[spoiler: Which, in hindsight, is an early hint that he's undercover, and a potentially RevealingMistake that - fortunately for him - is ignored by his companions.]]

* BathhouseBlitz: Nikolai is tricked into taking Kirill's place in a meeting at the local sauna with the Chechens following Kirill's unsanctioned murder of the Chechens' brother Soyka. Nikolai arrives, undresses, and waits in the sauna room as expected. The Chechens show up seeking vengeance and attack Nikolai with knives forcing him into a brutal fight to death.

* BookEnds: Anna's first night of involvement with the Mafiya ends with Nikolai driving her in his car while she gives directions to her house, her last night has her driving him on her motorbike following his instructions to the body-dumping zone.
* BrutalBrawl: a notorious scene where Nikolai is cornered in a Turkish bath by two assailants and engages them in an epic FullFrontalAssault. Fists vs. hooked linoleum knives.

* ChessMotifs: [[spoiler:"You cannot become king while king is still in place."]] And Nikolai shares a last name, Luzhin, with a famous chessmaster in the Creator/VladimirNabokov novel ''The Defense''.
* ChildByRape: [[spoiler: Christine]].
* CreepyBlueEyes / IcyBlueEyes: Semyon's most distinctive feature, and perfectly match his personality.
* DeathByChildbirth: Tatiana.
* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: Stepan at one point ''spits in Nikolai's face''. He's trying to protect Anna at the time, but given that his reaction to Tatiana's diary proves he is familiar with the ''Vory v Zakone'', it is a ''remarkably'' stupid thing to do.

** The brothel frequented by the gangsters seems that most of the prostitutes shown will end up like this.
** [[spoiler:Averted with [[LastNameBasis Kirilenko]], the Ukranian prostitute that Nikolai is forced to have sex with in front of Kiril. She looks to be the most depressed prostitute there (and this is [[RewatchBonus arguably why Nikolai picked her]]) and, after Nikolai asks for her name and village and hopes that she can "Stay alive a little longer"; she's later rescued from the brothel by the police, seemingly at Nikolai's request.]]
* EnigmaticMinion: Nikolai 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.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler: Kirill can't kill Tatiana's baby, who is, to be fair, his half-sister. He also couldn't bring himself to rape Tatiana months before, leading Semyon to do it instead.]]

* 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 a [[TheMole mole]] -- really just told him to go to Edinburgh until things blew over.]]

** Not to mention that Nikolai's much-discussed nude scene happens during [[spoiler:a brutal knife fight.]]

* {{Fingore}}: The "processing" of Soyka's corpse involves chopping off his fingers.

* FullFrontalAssault: Near the end, Nikolai is attacked by two knife-wielding mobsters in a bathhouse. And while Nikolai starts the scene in a robe, he loses it almost immediately. He's badly hurt in the battle, but [[OtherStockPhrases you should see the other two guys]].
* {{Gayngster}}: [[spoiler:Kirill is pretty obviously gay.]]
* GrumpyOldMan: Anna's racist uncle Stepan. With a heavy dose of JerkWithAHeartOfGold.
* HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday: Kirill insists on watching Nikolai have sex with one of the prostitutes at the brothel.
* HeKnowsTooMuch: [[spoiler: When Semyon finds out that Stepan read the diary, he orders Nikolai to kill him. Luckily, Nikolai's really an undercover FSB agent, and makes Stepan disappear... to a five-star hotel in Edinburgh where he'll be safe until everything blows over.]]

* 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. But then just before he freaks out and demands Nikolai sleep with a prostitute to prove that ''he's'' not gay...while Kirill watches. Can we say 'projection?'
** WordOfGod confirms Kirill is deeply in the closet and in love with Nikolai.

* 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. But then just before he freaks out and demands Nikolai sleep with a prostitute...while he watches. Can we say 'projection?'

* DisposableSexWorker: Tatiana, and it seems that most of the prostitutes shown will end up like this.

The story revolves around Anna (Creator/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.

* InfantImmortality: [[spoiler: Played straight; the baby lives.]]

* TheMafiya: This is one of the few good looks at the Russian mob in Western cinema. And in an amusing instance, Mortenson's outfit and cosmetic aids were so authentic that one day at lunch, he realized he'd unintentionally freaked out a Russian immigrant couple who took him for a real gangster. He had to introduce himself and explain the film to set them at ease. This was helped by Russian being one European language that Mortenson ''can't'' speak.

* 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 told him to go to Edinburgh until things blew over.]]

* IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten: [[spoiler: Nikolai is implied to have done a variety of nasty things to get where he is. Once it's revealed he's a ReverseMole all of his actions in the film such as disposing of a body and sleeping with a SexSlave are suddenly shown to have been in this trope all along.]]

* ReverseMole: [[spoiler:Nikolai. Not explicitly stated until late in the film, but there are [[{{Foreshadowing}} several hints]]: The somewhat irreverent attitude towards Semyon that he shows around Kirill, the letter the detective finds on Soyka's body, the prostitute he had sex with being snatched by the police, his tendency to ask questions that he gets rebuked for, and his interest in the diary.]]

* BathhouseBlitz: Nikolai is tricked into taking Kirill's place in a meeting at the local sauna with the Chechens following Kirill's unsanctioned murder of the Chechens' brother. Nikolai arrives, undresses, and waits in the sauna room as expected. The Chechens show up seeking vengeance and attack Nikolai with knives forcing him into a brutal fight to death.