The Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen is praised by a Russian mafia expert for one of his Oscar-nominated roles. Although many performances by Peter Jackson The Lord of the Rings trilogy is celebrated, Mortensen's depiction of the heroic Aragorn is particularly popular. There were even discussions about him reprising the role in the next film in the franchise, The Hunt for Gollumdirected by Andy Serkis and scheduled for release in 2026.
Although he is best known for The Lord of the Rings, Mortensen received three Oscar nominations for other films in which he starred. His most recent nomination was for his portrayal of Tony Lip in 2018 Green Bookwhich won the Oscar for Best Picture. Mortensen also received widespread recognition for playing The Man in 2009 The roada post-apocalyptic story adapted from Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name.
Viggo Mortensen's Eastern Promises are applauded for their realism
The film gets many details about the Russian mafia right
The accuracy of Mortensen's 2007 film Eastern Promises receives a rave review for its accuracy. As one of Viggo Mortensen's best films, from him performance as Nikolai Luzhin earned him his first Oscar nomination. Nikolai is involved with the Russian mafia, who are threatened by evidence from a midwife named Anna (Naomi Watts), leading the mafia to take extreme measures to protect themselves and their darkest secrets from being used against them.
In a Insider video, former CIA agent and Russian mafia investigator Joe Serio highlights the precision of Mortensen's performance as Nikolai and his physical representation. He first explains why the London setting is appropriate for the story and why it makes sense for Nikolai to hold his coronation ceremony in a restaurant. Serio also looks at the symbolic meaning behind Nikolai's tattoos and their importance in the Russian mafia hierarchy. Although Serio is mostly impressed with Eastern Promiseshe takes issue with a scene that takes place in a bathhouse. Check out their comments below:
You see the gangsters, the mafia entering a restaurant in London. So when you talk about the Russian mafia and expansion, these guys, number one, are all over the world. One of its main centers is London. They bought tons and tons of real estate to launder their funds from Russia. Often, both in the Soviet era and in the Russian era, they used restaurants as meeting places. Then you see them entering a restaurant in London, very normal, very typical,
They did a really good job with that scene. The problem with the Russian underworld is that they have such extensive tattoos that the first comment the boss makes is “I can see by the look in your eyes that you did time in Siberia.” Tattoos will tell you where you are in the hierarchy, they will tell you what crimes you committed, how many sentences you served in prisons.
The other thing in this clip is that Nikolai is at a coronation ceremony. That's what's happening here. He is becoming a thief, a thief with a capital T. They call it Vor V Zakone; This is the “thief-brother-in-law”. These are the big bosses, the bosses of the mafia world.
This whole section about how “I did a few years in solitary confinement, I was in prison…” The thing about the Vor, the thieves, is that traditionally, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, their respect and their elite status came how long they spent in prison. So one of the things I was involved in was going into Russian prisons and filming documentaries. In a prison I entered, we went to see one of these thieves. The warden told me, “Look, I'm not going to lie to you. This guy we're about to meet runs this prison. He's the one who keeps the peace. I have to work with him.”
In this scene they are talking about stars and Nikolai is about to get his tattoos like an underworld thief. First, you already see the cross on Nikolai's chest. This one is used a lot by bosses, but the stars is the best known, and he says in the scene: “You have an empty space on your shoulders, that's where the stars go, and the stars on your knees say: I will not kneel , I will not kneel before any authority, I am a boss.
I'm not a big fan of this scene. Bathhouses were generally safe places where young men could congregate and were generally off-limits to things like this. That knife itself, in Russia, you use whatever weapon you use. So, at some point in the Soviet Union, it was said that the weapon most often used in a murder was an axe. Because if we think about Russia before the Soviet Union, it is a very agricultural country, so this weapon is not necessarily a signature of the Russian mafia. That's what this guy had in his hands.
First of all, Viggo Mortensen is a professional actor. He did a great job here learning the language. The scene in London, the coronation, the tattoos and the descriptions of the tattoos, nine out of ten for this scene.
Eastern Promises had a strong creative team behind it
Serio's comments further cement that Eastern Promises is an underrated gangster film. Mortensen's engaging performance is behind much of what makes Eastern Promises work, as well as detailed direction by David Cronenberg and a strong script written by Steven Knight. The entire creative team came together to ensure that Eastern Promises was a gripping and quite accurate portrayal of the Russian mafia. Mortensen will always be best known for The Lord of the Ringsbut he is equally impressive in Eastern Promises.
Source: Insider