7. Eastern Promises
David Cronenbergs character film about the Russian mob in London always had a particularly grimy feel to it. It eschewed the glitz and glamour of most crime films to show you the real, scuzzy world that a Russian hood might live in. Even the man who ostensibly runs the whole crime family only owns a humble restaurant, and his son (played excellently by Vincent Cassel) prowls around bedsits and back-streets being an awful but conflicted human being. Its this grimy aesthetic which helps fuel the next fight scene, where two low-level Chechen enforcers come for Viggo Mortensens main character when hes relaxing in a bathhouse. What follows is a strange mix of compulsive and unwatchable. Any notion of glamour is instantly removed by the fact that Mortensens Nikolai is completely and graphically naked throughout the whole scene. Theres no Hollywood cliche to any of the punches or kicks that he throws, and his nakedness adds a sense of urgency and pain, allowing you to see the knife wounds he receives. How he ends the fight slowly driving a curved knife through the back of a mans skull, must also go down as one of the most brutal ways to ever end a fight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re37IVYO_MY The whole thing is a particular breed of awful and shocking and unlike most Hollywood-ised fight scenes, the man youre rooting for doesnt fare too well either though victorious, hes severely wounded and spends much of the films final act either in the hospital or nursing his injuries.