Eastern Promises; Mr. Woodcock

Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, 2007) - B+

Tricky -- Cronenberg's trademark doom-and-gloom portentousness keeps you waiting patiently for a Big Twist, a left turn like the one A History of Violence took in its third act. It never comes, and once Eastern Promises is over it kind of feels like it's slipped away from you. The key is to come to terms with its distinctly non-fantastic scope -- it's a mafia tale, opening a window into one particular (and probably fictional) seedy underbelly of London; a story of ritual and power, of good people navigating a hideous criminal underworld. But man, it's a Cronenberg movie through and through, with a disarmingly frank focus on sordid details, a direct, effects-heavy approach to gruesome violence that periodically disrupts the otherwise dignified mien, and one sequence that will be studied by fight scene acolytes until the very demise of film as an art form. Not as significant as History or the rest of the man's best work, but certainly suspenseful and disturbing -- the least we can expect from Cronenberg, I guess.


Mr. Woodcock (Craig Gillespie, 2007) - B-

Two ways this could have gone -- making Woodcock a real bastard and the film's villain, or making him basically misunderstood and the film about the protagonist's realization of same. I actually liked the choice the screenplay makes, though (*SPOILER*) it would have been far stronger had it grappled with the child abuse it plays for laughs -- everything everyone thought about Woodcock is wrong, it turns out, but, uh, he was still pretty nasty to those kids. I also wish the movie had stuck to its guns w/r/t the anti-self-help sentiment, instead of dismantling one stupid trope only to introduce another at the 11th hour. But it's pretty funny (the video crafted by Farley's friends to incriminate Woodcock is priceless), usually going just far enough to be satisfying; Billy Bob Thornton's the man, and Seann William Scott kind of is too, though his talents are underused here. Susan Sarandon's presence is a mystery.