Dark, somber, bleak and brutally powerful, Eastern Promises is the latest disturbingly violent piece of poetry from master filmmaker David Cronenberg (A History of Violence). An arresting marvel of storytelling and substance, this pitch black parable of history, tradition, family and vengeance is a hard-core thriller ranking amongst this director’s very best. It is, without question, one of the year’s finest masterpieces.

Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts get close in Focus Features' Eastern Promises

But, much like all of Cronenberg’s efforts, it is also not for the squeamish and definitely sure not to appease everyone. This saga of the Russian mafia secretly and quietly controlling the streets of London while a lone midwife seeks to find answers as to why a pregnant 14-year-old girl came to die in childbirth goes straight for the jugular – literally and figuratively – and never for a moment lets up. Steven Knight’s screenplay is twisted as well as twisty, and much like his Dirty Pretty Things there is blackness to all of it difficult to wash off when exiting the theater.

That’s fine by me. I like movies with meat on their bones, complex characters to explore and something interesting to say. This drama is a movingly emotional thriller full of subtle nuances and deft characterizations. It is unafraid to stare into the heart of darkness, forcing viewers to do the same whether they are comfortable doing so or not. This is crackerjack filmmaking at its very best and for viewers tired of the same old-same old Eastern Promises is the one guaranteed to wake them from their slumber and force them to take notice.

Naomi Watts is excellent as the midwife Anna desperately trying to discover the secrets buried within the diary of a dead teenager, while Armin Mueller-Stahl has his best role since his Oscar-nominated turn in Shine as a Russian restaurant owner whose murderous might hides behind the kindly visage of puttering old man. Vincent Cassel is also quite good as the man’s son, but the French actor’s Russian accent does tend to waver and he isn’t helped by Knight, the script leaving him a bit of an enigma by the time things come to an end.

The real force of nature here, however, is Viggo Mortensen. Playing Cassel’s best friend, confident, driver and protector Nikolai Luzhin, the actor buries himself so deep inside the role I completely forgot I was watching the same man who brought Aragorn, Frank Hopkins and Tom Stall to such vigorous life in previous flicks. This is one of the most magnificently fearless performances of the entire year, all of Nikolai’s feelings and motivations hidden behind a nakedly wounded visage of caring machismo unlike any I’ve seen in ages.

Cronenberg directs confidently, letting the movie uncoil organically, frequent cinematographer Peter Suschitzky’s (Shopgirl) camera gliding effortlessly throughout the story’s milieu as if it were a silent observer transmitting its observations back to us for our erudition. Yet the director punctuates this quiet surveillance with pungent spurts of violence and adrenaline, a brawl inside a bathhouse one of the more jarring and deeply unsettling fight sequences I think I might have ever experienced.  

I must admit, things do wrap themselves up a bit too nicely, while a certain twist in regards to one of the character’s allegiances isn’t altogether a surprise (I had it figured out within the first twenty minutes), but these are small problems when the film is taken in as a whole. Cronenberg ends things on a coda that’s at once comforting and chilling, deep longing loneliness mixed with superlative warmhearted happiness melding to form an unforgettable climax. No need to mince words, Eastern Promises borders on brilliance and is absolutely impossible to forget.