Eastern Promises (2007)

“London...” sighs ageing Russian mob boss Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl). “City of whores and queers!” No wonder director David Cronenberg feels so much at home, having opted to follow his East End psychodrama Spider, by way of A History Of Violence, with this chilly peer into the secret gangster underworld lying just beneath the city’s surface. For his part, writer Steven Knight previously explored the capital’s immigrant subculture in Stephen Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things. Yet where the British director handled Knight’s material with a gritty, forensic naturalism, his Canadian counterpart opts for the gothic, bringing a cool, studied menace to this twisting tale of grime and punishment.

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