Quite simply, a great title such as this one truly delivers one astonishing and spellbinding film. Eastern Promises is the highly anticipated new thriller from David Cronenberg, who directed the 2005 masterpiece A History of Violence. With this one, Cronenberg re-teams with Viggo Mortensen, the star of his previous critical and commercial smash, as he makes a shift and descent into the underground of the Russian mob in London.

Eastern Promises opens with two gruesome scenes, one involving a close-up of a throat slashing and another of a young, pregnant prostitute hemorrhaging in a pharmacy. The fourteen-year-old is rushed to a hospital, when she loses her life but gives one to her newly born daughter. Anna Khitrova, an innocent midwife played in a powerful performance by Naomi Watts, delivers the baby and decides to take it upon her to decipher the truth behind the death of the young prostitute. Anna takes her diary, written in native Russian, and with the help of her mother and uncle, she goes on a quest to the underbelly of the Russian mafia in London. In this particular case, the patriarch of the so-called Vory V Zakone brotherhood is the scary Semyon (played beautifully by the great character actor Armin Mueller-Stahl), whose face of legitimate business is his popular restaurant. Semyon has a son named Kirill (the cunning, powerhouse French actor Vincent Cassel), whose driver, right-hand man and "undertaker" is Nikolai (Mortensen). Eventually, Anna comes into contact with them, and what follows is a harrowing chain of events that interlinks all the characters present. I cannot reveal anything more than that, due to the chilling, surprising nature of this magnificently told tale.

This is yet another extraordinary film by the great Canadian director David Cronenberg. Aside from A History of Violence, his previous features include the hypnotic Videodrome (1983), the insanely gory The Fly (1986), the sexually driven Crash (1996) and the inventive sci-fi eXistenZ (1999). Even though he plays with his genres, the common theme of exploring the psychology of human emotion is deeply evident in his latest effort. Just like A History of Violence, with Eastern Promises, Cronenberg offers a conflict of good versus evil that investigates the depth of human psyche and the ambiguity of human nature. This may come as a surprise, but with his role of Nikolai, Viggo Mortensen gives the best performance of his career. His physical and emotional transformation is almost intimidating. From his tattoos, to the accent, to the body language, to simple mannerisms, he sinks so deeply into his role; it turns out to be something that usually stands out when it comes to Oscar time. There is somewhat so terrifically balanced and carefully nuanced about his performance, it is a total tour-de-force.

What makes Eastern Promises so special is the nature of its events, characters and actions. Here is a film not interested in the mechanics of the mafia, but rather about the relationships among the people in it and what they do in certain situations. It explores the environment around them and tells us why things that take place happen. Not many gangster flicks out there have the guts to say anything about that, but Cronenberg does not hesitate. His latest masterwork contains a taut screenplay by Steven Knight, multiple well-developed characters, few viciously bloody individual scenes that are literally unforgettable, and an ensemble cast that thrills. In the years and years to come, something tells me that Eastern Promises will still resonate.