Anyone who liked Eastern Promises (which I did in a lukewarm sort of way) will probably be interested in these photos of real-life Russian gangster tattoos:

http://englishrussia.com/?p=1755#more-1755

Is 'lukewarm' synonymous with 'Stephen Frears'?

Because if so, I too liked EASTERN PROMISES in a Stephen Frears sort of way...

I don't know. I remember thinking that Frears's Dirty Pretty Things (which was also scripted by Eastern Promises screenwriter Steve Knight) was pretty good.

Is 'pretty good' the same as 'Cronenberg good'? Because if so, I part ways with you there...






(I actually like Frears fine, but he's very much a 'for hire' craftsman, and it's a little weird seeing Cronenberg working in this mode - and I don't think this or A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE exactly subversively burst their borders, genre-wise - though many certainly disagree)

Unless you consider A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE a modern Western with station wagons substituting for stagecoaches. :unsure:

...or something like that.

Maybe I'm thinking of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and its station wagons.

At his best, I would definitely consider Cronenberg better than "pretty good." I liked A History of Violence a lot. I would need to watch it again before I formed an opinion on how much it subversively broke genre borders or anything like that (the last time I saw it was during its initial theatrical run), but I thought it was a very strong piece of work all around.

As would I.

Of course, if you are really interested in the tattoos in the film then you could go straight to the material that Mortensen and Cronenberg used for research:
RUSSIAN CRIMINAL TATTOO ENCYCLOPEDIA VOLUME II

I was really underwhelmed by EASTERN PROMISES - the script was definitely the weakest link.