Eastern Promises' Viggo Mortensen is nominated for Best Actor.This film feels like The Sopranos:London via Ukraine. That's a complement. It's one of the best mob films in years. It's a small scale film, the opposite of an epic, concentrating on a few characters and barely touching on setting and extraneous character development. It's set in London but London is not a character. This film could be set in any Old World city. There's a bare minimum of back story on these characters. You're plopped down into the middle of their lives and the film takes off from there. It's intense from the first scene and doesn't let up. The cast is great all around, and I always forget how good Naomi Watts is. As for Viggo, he probably got the nod for his total commitment to his role, as demonstrated in the famous naked fight in the bathhouse scene. Viggo insisted on literally letting it all hang out for this brutal sequence. Besides that he does a great Russian accent, but I don't think his character is complete enough to win the Oscar. There's not enough conflict to his actions. Overall a very good film that opens up a view into the ultra violent "Mob World" that seemingly exists in all big cities, and dares us, as it does Watts' character, to enter and survive.
The Sneaky Cheetah's Grade: A
This is Mortensen's first Oscar nomination (though he should have gotten a nod for The Two Towers or Return of the King!).
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