David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg & Viggo Mortensen: [Mortensen:] That's a puzzle...if you look at Schopenhauer, he talks about compassion. And why does someone, when it does him no good whatsoever, go and assist someone?

[Cronenberg] investigates his own cinematic propensity for violence and skill at purveying it...sex and violence can be random, can be animal, and certainly can be satisfying.

Eastern Promises' unusually ambiguous character study makes for a different kind of crime drama, a striking if not entirely satisfying one.