The mysterious and charismatic Russian-born Nikolai Luzhin (Mortensen) is a driver for one of London's most notorious organized crime families of Eastern European origin. The family itself is part of the Vory V Zakone criminal brotherhood. Headed by Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), whose courtly charm as the welcoming proprietor of the plush Trans-Siberian restaurant impeccably masks a cold and brutal core, the family's fortunes are tested by Semyon's volatile son and enforcer, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), who is more tightly bound to Nikolai than to his own father. But Nikolai's carefully maintained existence is jarred once he crosses paths at Christmastime with Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), a midwife at a North London hospital. Anna is deeply affected by the desperate situation of a young teenager who dies while giving birth to a baby. Anna resolves to try to trace the baby's lineage and relatives. The girl's personal diary also survives her; it is written in Russian, and Anna seeks answers in it. Anna's mother Helen (Sinead Cusack) does not discourage her, but Anna's irascible Russian-born uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski) urges caution. He is right to do so; by delving into the diary, Anna has accidentally unleashed the full fury of the Vory.
Let's just get out of the way that you should know before going in to this that there is a crazy knife fight in which Viggo Mortensen is butt naked. I mean like the fight scene from Borat with knives, people! I just thought I'd warn my peeps about this before discussing the movie. That being out of the way now, the movie was actually very well done. It's not really a mainstream movie though. Its an artsy drama about the mob with good performances by all included. There are a couple of really violent scenes (including the aforementioned naked fight scene), but its mostly a character drama besides that. This is one of those movies that has a lot of tension built in throughout the movie, but no big end point where its all released. The tension is simply properly directed to keep your attention throughout the movie. There was one thing that I just couldn't get out of my head during this movie. Does every son of a mob boss have to be such a out of control dumbass? In every mob movie or television show - the son is always the stupidest guy in the world. What's that about?
I'd recommend people checking this one out if they were interested by the commercial for it. Just be warned that its a artsy type movie and this may disappoint a lot of people who are looking forward to some big wham bam type ending that doesn't happen.
