Well, there's four minutes of Viggo Mortensen nude. Then there's four minutes of Viggo Mortensen nude. Then there's four minutes of what happens in this movie. And that's an entirely different thing.
So, even though Tracy is the only one who reads this and she sat next to me in the movie, the basic plot is a midwife, Naomi Watts, helps to deliver the baby of a dying 14 year old girl. Finding the family of the girl gets her involved with the Russian mob in London. Not nice guys who include Viggo, his "boss" (an appropriately slimy Vincent Cassel) and the dad of his boss who is a big player in the mob. Of course, the Russian mob is involved in the pregnancy and subsequent death of the girl and Anna (Naomi) gets herself in just a bit of danger by investigating a tad too much. Luckily, Nikolai (Viggo) has a heart and prevents her from getting in too deep. That's about all of the plot I can give away just in case there's another reader here.
There were four scenes where I covered my face. One was in anticipation of a dentistry scene that didn't appear. The four lengthy minutes of Viggo nude was another one of those scenes. I won't say what happens or when it the movie it happens just in case you don't see it coming (which you should, at least in the minute before it happens) but, oh boy, it's a scene.
It is a good movie, though. Good character development of interesting characters. Good solid plot with no noticeable holes. Respectable ending that's not too easy.
2 comments:
You know, I think that the four minutes of glory is actually a really smart climax (heheh) to the film. Initially, I thought the whole tattoo thing was a little underdeveloped, to have such a great speech about it, but I think that if you pair that speech with the naked fighting, it works really well. So the speech says that the tattoos tell a story, a coherent story, and there actually is no person without them. And then the tattoos (along with Viggo's hot hot body) get ripped to shreds in the sauna. It's a nice representation of the way Viggo's character refuses to cohere. Like you said, the ending is not easy. Thinking about it more, I wonder if we're supposed to question his alliance to Scotland Yard. Maybe he was being honest with Naomi when he told her that he was trying to get rid of the king so he could be one. He seems to always tell her the truth and lie to everyone else. Then at the end, it appears that might be what has happened. In any case, it becomes impossible to construct a totally satisfying linear narrative about Viggo, just like jagged scars are now interrupting his tattoos.
Oh, I agree about the tattoo/naked-fighting combo. I think the scene works well BUT I don't ever need to see it again (not that I even saw all of it the first time).
I think we have to question everything he's said. Yes, he seems to tell Naomi the truth when she needs it (ex: her uncle's location/life) but he also never really tells her his involvement (gov't or "undertaker"--just says "driver") so she thinks the worst all of the time (undertaker) while hoping for something less violent (innocuous driver or something like the gov't--although he takes that job to a whole new level).
And we know that the gov't guy says that sending them a dead body is unorthodox and that the son went behind the father's back with the killing of that guy--perhaps Viggo planted that destructive seed.
And we have to question the whole tattoo thing too (esp. considering his pause before replying to the "mother is a whore" comment--we know he has a soft spot for protecting women but he doesn't pause like that anywhere else in the film). It could be that he was imprisoned and earned those tattoos or they could be as fake as his new stars. Which is interesting in terms of them now being interrupted by scars--if they are fake they are now interrupted by the very real and more natural "tattoo" and the one that really gets him "in" the mob in terms of being able to be king.
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