A couple of thoughts, and a couple of issues with the above derision:
Midwife lady takes the diary to the restaurant because its card is in the diary, not at random. After grandpa she doesn’t seem to know any other Russian people - or not to the extent that she’d go to them rather than follow the card first. It doesn’t matter that it’s closed because she’s not going there to eat - it looks like she just went after her shift ended or whatever.
We don’t know how seemingly easy it was for the girl to escape once or keep a diary; maybe the girls are allowed to keep random junk and books around/they assumed she couldn’t write anything important, and he escape could have been some kind of involved, heroic last semi-lucid effort to save her child in labor. I have no idea how things really were. But neither does anyone else; the movie doesn’t tell that story.
Granted, the diary entries read like a retarded drama novel - though I get the impression that this girl is not genius material anyway, from the inflections (and the voiceover’s slow, halting tone even though the diary is in her native language) - It’s very unlikely that she would write them in that manner, especially while high or in small bursts of lucidity. That’s not the kind of thing you write to yourself to reread later, it’s narration for an audience. It would have made more sense if it was a flat out letter for help or something.
It’s not necessarily weird that midwife’s grandpa is Russian. Maybe her home and the restaurant (which she said wasn’t far) are all situated near Russia town? We have a Russian district where a lot of Russians tend to live, and of course all the Russian restaurants are there too.
I don’t think the slavery thing was necessarily there to drive the story so much as it was a reason for midwife lady to get so deeply involved, feeling overly sympathetic for the child, once she found out what happened (because she was horrified by the foreignness/extremeness of the situation).
I also agree, though, that it was stupid how amazingly often totally Russian gangsters in private were speaking to each other in English/slow, English-peppered Russian, but they do that in a ton of movies. I think it must be some sort of Hollywood rule.
I think Viggo could have used a bit more practice (I used to work for Russians, the young business-y ones talk at like 500 miles per hour), but not too bad at all for someone who isn’t remotely Russian.
My problem with the movie is that:
I think they shouldn’t have come in with “OOPS! he’s a double agent, so he’s actually one of the good guys” at all (or they should have decided to remove it, if this was adapted from a novel). I think the plot would have been richer for the conflict of Viggo being likeable and somewhat emotionally driven, but also an opportunistic, precise killer trying to muscle his way up through the mafia ranks. Also, they could have lost the kissing at the end.
My verdict - a few eye-rolling moments, but mostly enjoyable, I wasn’t all over Viggo before but he was pretty cool in this, and I’m glad I went.
I really noticed everyone’s wrinkles, grooves and micromovements (especially chewing), and imperfections of voice in this movie. I think it added to the atmosphere. 