BY ROB LOWMAN > LA.COM

'EASTERN PROMISES' -- an interview with director David Cronenberg and star Viggo Mortensen
Late in David Cronenberg's Golden Globe-nominated "Eastern Promises," a scene is missing. Well, missing in the minds of some people, that is. But the 64-year-old Canadian director figured you already knew what happened.

"The reason that you imagined that scene means that I don't have to bore you with actually showing it," says Cronenberg about the film, set in London's expatriate Russian underworld. "The convention of the genre gives you a shorthand with your audience and allows you to subvert the conventions while using them."

Viggo Mortensen plays Nikolai, the sly ex-convict with slicked-back silver hair who serves as a driver for a Russian gangster involved in the sex-slave trade. The star of Cronenberg's prior film, "A History of Violence," he appreciates how the director can challenge expectations.

"One thing I like about Cronenberg as a director is that he doesn't only not reference ... other people's work and other directors' movies, he doesn't even reference himself really," says the actor who received a Globe nomination for his role, a far cry from his dashing warrior Aragorn in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

"Obviously it's the same guy directing both `History of Violence' and `Eastern Promises.' ... But I think that's what makes him get better and better as a director and why he's such an original voice is that he doesn't work from a conceptual point of view. He doesn't think I have to copy or avoid copying anything I've done before."

This is in line with Cronenberg's own philosophy toward directing.

"Every director invents the way they become a director," says Cronenberg, who doesn't use storyboards, "and mine was think on your feet."

Nowhere was that more evident than in the grisly knife-fight scene in a steam room, with Mortensen's only cover his tattoos.

"It's not really that different from a fight scene you might do ... except Viggo was naked," noted Cronenberg, who said he was more concerned at first about the logistics and realism of the fight. "It had to be very physical, and I wanted people to really feel it. Eventually, though, Viggo said, 'It's obvious that I am going to have to do this naked because otherwise it's not going to be realistic,' and that was that."

Mortensen admitted that the two-day shoot was painful. "For obvious reasons, there's no pads … kneepads, elbow pads … wherever."

Finding actors like Mortensen, James Woods, Christopher Walken, Jeremy Irons, Ralph Feinnes who go that extra mile has always been a hallmark of Cronenberg's career. It's kind of "a black art," notes Cronenberg about casting. "I only have … and I think anybody only has … intuition to go by."

His intuition paid off in "Eastern Promises," in which Naomi Watts plays a midwife searching for the relatives of a baby born to an unknown teen mother who died giving birth. The search leads her to what appears to a kindly old Russian restaurant proprietor (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and his son (Vincent Cassel), but they are really involved in the sex trade and more immoral and illegal activities.

"I'm interested in people who are in a state of perpetual transgression," said Cronenberg about why he was drawn to the script by Steve Knight ("Dirty Pretty Things"). "That's one of the attractions of doing a gangster film ... Because there are people that are living beyond the limits of the law ... but they are still within society. That's what I meant by perpetual transgression," said Cronenberg, who has signed to write a novel … "Something I've wanted to do for 50 years."

In two featurettes on the DVD, Cronenberg talks about bringing the screenplay to life and what all those Russian prison tattoos on Mortensen symbolize.

'THE KINGDOM'
Another attempt to cast some light on the Middle East situation, "The Kingdom," a thriller about a team of FBI agents investigating a bombing that killed Americans in Saudi Arabia, suffers when it comes to geopolitical sophistication but scores some points as an action thriller.

Starring Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper … two recent Oscar winners … "The Kingdom" revolves around the U.S.' need for oil and the Saudis' need to protect their kingdom from threats of Islamic radicals in a series of mostly implausible political machinations.

After a vicious attack on American oil company workers and their families, Foxx's character, Fleury, uses some political blackmail to get the Saudis to agree to let him take a team of FBI forensic experts to the secretive country to investigate.

The team … Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman … are met with resistance and suspicion, of course. But a bridge is finally reached between Fleury and a Saudi policeman named Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom), both recognizing the good cop in the other.

Peter Berg's film predictably tries to show how all Arabs aren't bad. Al Ghazi's family is shown in a loving situation. The terrorists for the most part are seen as single-minded. "The Kingdom," however, kicks into gear when it's about guns, car chases, police work and revving up the tension. That, it's quite good at.

The Iraq war is never mentioned but looms as a dark off-screen presence. In the end, "The Kingdom" offers a simple-minded vision of the situation, perhaps not inaccurate, but lacking subtlety. Still, that's probably what is needed to get people to see an Iraq war-related movie.

At nearly $50 million domestically, Berg's film has done the best by far at the box office. And even that's no great shakes.

'THE HEARTBREAK KID'
The 1972, "The Heartbreak Kid" was a product of its time. The 2007 remake was, too.

The '72 version, directed by Elaine May, was based on a short story by Bruce Jay Friedman, with a screenplay by Neil Simon. It dealt with a guy named Lenny who makes a hasty decision about marriage and starts feeling guilty about it on their honeymoon.

The 2007 version by the Farrelly brothers, Lenny is now Eddie (Ben Stiller), and the basic plot is the same, but there's no guilt or human feelings. What worked as humor in the first film has been pretty much eliminated in the second in favor of the Farrelly trademarks of gross-out with the sweetness of a "Something About Mary."

There are laughs; the Farrellys almost always guarantee that. But it's pretty much a one-joke, slightly mean-spirited movie. The original wasn't a classic, but it had some substance.

New DVDs

NEW FILMS
"Eastern Promises" ($29.98 and $39.98 for HD)
"The Kingdom" ($29.98 and $39.98 for HD)
"The Heartbreak Kid" ($29.99 and $39.99 for HD)
"American Pie Presents: Beta House" ($29.98)
"Shattered" ($26.98)

TELEVISION
"Battlestar Galactica 1980 … The Complete Epic Series" ($29.98)

NEW TO HD AND BLU-RAY
"Pan's Labyrinth" ($35.99 for HD or Blu-Ray)
"Cat People" ($29.98 for HD)
"Timecop" ($29.98 for HD)

SPECIAL INTEREST
"WWE: The Best of Raw 15th Anniversary" ($34.95)

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Images from top: Viggo Mortensen and David Cronenberg by Getty Images, Mortensen and Naomi Watts in "Eastern Promises," Jamie Foxx in "The Kingdom."