Hype is a funny thing. Too much of it can skewer an expectation, and completely ruin an experience. Sometimes the hype builds for months, sometimes it takes just a few weeks. When I sat down this weekend to watch EASTERN PROMISES, I was caught up in the fact that it had just won the Audience Choice Award at The Toronto International Film Festival. While it isn’t as prestigious an honour as Cannes’ Palm d”Or, it is still an indicator of a solid movie (past winners include WHALE RIDER, HOTEL RWANDA, AMELIE, and AMERICAN BEAUTY). Two hours later, I wasn’t disappointed…but I was slightly underwhelmed. Perhaps, in a mere seven days, I had soaked up too much hype about the movie. More on that later.

We begin with a sad story set in London: a pregnant teenager is brought to the hospital after she begins hemorrhaging blood. She doesn’t survive the operation to save her, but her baby does. In attempting to identify this Jane Doe, a London hospital midwife named Anna (Naomi Watts) finds the girl’s diary in her bag, filled with notes written in Russian. Anna dearly wants to find the family of this new baby, and her deceased mother, but after her Russian uncle translates some of the diary – he urges her to be careful.

Anna’s search brings her to the Trans Siberian restaurant, where she meets the proprietor Semyon (Armin Meuller–Stahl), his son Kirill (Vincent Cassel, and his driver Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). The secrets contained in the diary all stem from the activities of Semyon’s involvement in eastern European organized crime. Semyon’s power over his family, Kirill’s loyalty to his father, and Nikolai’s chance to rise through the ranks all stand to be undone if the truth in this diary is revealed.

The film is another solid outing by Canadian director David Cronenberg, and for my money, his third gem in a row looking back to A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and SPIDER. The movie is infused with a sense of patience, as the audience waits for this very tense situation to boil over. This is where my disappointment kicks in. For starters, Anna is associating and begging the help of some very dangerous men. Yet somehow, she never seems to be in any danger herself. Similarly, the crime family gets involved in a power struggle set off by a murder in the movie’s first act, but for the most part, this conflict is quick and cold. The movie does ratchet up the struggle in a scene set in a Turkish bath house, where Nikolai fends off two assassins while stark naked. The scene is violent, primal, and I wish there had been more moments like it in the movie.

The strangest thing about EASTERN PROMISES is the pacing. There is a twist, but for me it felt as if it arrived about half an hour too late to really be effective. It’s a good twist, but the story doesn’t really follow up on it, and it’s a shame because I think if it had, I would be writing about a new organized crime classic, rather than just a good organized crime movie.

The best acting in the movie comes from Mortensen and Meuller–Stahl. Mortensen plays Nikolai with the stoicness of an eastern bloc soldier. A man who always stands at attention, even when he is just out on a city sidewalk. He is methodical, calculating, and at times felt like he was channeling Ed Harris’ character from A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. He also does a good job of putting on a Russian accent – no small feat when you consider that such an attempt can often garner ridiculous results (John Malkovich in ROUNDERS). Meuller–Stahl plays the patriarch of this crime family with a seemingly genuine compassion, such as when he first meets Anna and invites her into his kitchen to sample the borscht he is so proud of. But underneath that phony hospitality, you can see the lengths he will go to in order to preserve his family’s business. And their secrets.

So did the hype ruin this film for me? Possibly. I didn’t love it, but it is certainly one of the better ones I’ve seen this year. It’s a good story, that is well acted and well directed. However, I found that I left A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE more impressed than when I left EASTERN PROMISES. In comparison to that previous film, and to other films in contention for The TIFF Audience Award, it feels lacking. That said, if you’re looking for a good movie in theatres, this is one of the better bets right now. Just take Public Enemy’s advice, and don’t believe the hype.