Eastern Promises reunites director David Cronenberg with his History of Violence co-star, Viggo Mortensen, and the result is more of the same ... it's good. Halfway into the film I remember thinking, Wow, this is a pretty damn good mob movie, but my tune changed somewhat by the end. This becomes more than just a genre flick. No, I'm not going into critic hyperbole and telling you it "elevates" the genre. It doesn't. It maneuvers through it, taking what it wants, adding its own ingredients, and the result is a pretty unique and very entertaining film.

So what's the movie about? First of all, the less you know the better and the marketing team has done a pretty good job selling this movie without spilling its guts. The fun is in discovering the story and I was never really sure what was coming next. But I'll give you the essentials.

Naomi Watts plays a midwife who is searching for the proper guardians of a newborn baby. The mother died during birth leaving only her diary written entirely in Russian. What the diary reveals I won't spoil, but it does lead Watts into the dangerous realms of the wise but creepy Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), his unbalanced son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and their cold, loyal driver Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen).

And that's all you'll get out of me. One of the things I enjoyed about the movie is that it takes place in England. It would have been so easy to set the story in New York, but here we get a pretty unique locale: the Russian mob underworld in London.

The acting is top-notch all around. Watts won't get a lot of love for her work in this film because she slowly disappears from the story. The film wisely focuses on Semyon, Kirill and Nikolai. Still, she's very good and it's obvious Watts knows good material when she sees it (I'm willing to pretend Stay never happened if she is). Stahl is scary good here and he just might land himself an award nod or two. Cassel is an actor I can take or leave, but his work here is very strong and legitimately interesting. But this is Viggo's show and once again he turns in some of his best work under Cronenberg.

Much will be made of the film's bathhouse fight but for all the wrong reasons. Yes, Viggo takes part in a fight scene where he is showing all of the Viggo. Going the full Viggo actually heightens the realism of this brutal scene and I was left wondering how in the world he didn't crack a rib or fracture something. He's obviously not hiding any padding under his skin and he hits the walls and floors with real force. I know movie making is about creating an illusion but this scene looked as real as it gets, it's visceral.

It isn't all high praise here. I've talked to some people that felt the film should have continued for another 20 or 40 minutes, that the story felt incomplete. I disagree. I actually think the film is hurt a little by tacking on one too many scenes in the final minutes, concluding one particular character and story arc too neatly for my tastes. But the movie's central story is resolved and I was happy with the resolution, even if certain futures are a little cloudy. Others disagree, perhaps feeling gypped, as if Cronenberg failed to deliver on a promise. I don't know, maybe that's how they do it in the east.

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Dre writes three times a week for Film.com. He's a welcher. Email him!