Review: A History of Violence

Rated R | 96 mins

IMDB Info

Shock and insight are two very different but strangely similar artistic expressions that can lend to a movie’s quality, but it takes a truly great filmmaker to interweave the two into a singular storyline. Writer/director David Cronenberg is one of the elite few that can do just this, and his latest picture, A History of Violence, does nothing to fault his respectable reputation. Starring Viggo Mortensen as a protagonist with a dark past, Cronenberg tells a riveting story while, at the same time, thought-provokingly commentating on the nature of violence in society.

Mortensen’s character is family-man Tom Stall…or so his small-town friends and family are led to believe. That is, until late one evening when he is greeted by a group of men dressed in black suits as he closes up the diner he owns and operates. “Coffee,” the leader of the bunch demands, threateningly. Tom reluctantly serves them, despite the inconvenience of doing so after calling it a day, only to then be met at gunpoint by one of the members of the mobster-looking crew. He reacts quickly, grabbing the gun and shooting them dead, protecting the remaining few customers and employees in the diner.

Tom is hailed as a small-town hero without question, admired by all of those around him. In fact, so much so that no one ever stops to ask how he became such a quick reactor or good shot. Despite this, conflict has not left his life. Days later, more men dressed in black suits, this time headed by Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), stride into the diner. “Nice place ‘ya got here, Joey,” Fogarty proclaims, accusing Tom of being an ex-mobster who he had ties with in previous years. As the plot progresses, Tom is further endangered and it is revealed that he is, indeed, the Joey that Fogarty claims him to be. In order to protect his own reputation and reformed life, he will have to settle the score and head to Philadelphia, where he used to do his dirty work.

Through a mere plot description, the movie seems to be like any other Fall Revenge-Blockbuster. It is anything but. Cronenberg is far more concerned with perfecting the details that the picture is made up of rather than trying to fill it with extra baggage. The revelatory moment in the diner is exemplary of this; the scene is blocked simply and efficiently, powerfully moving from Point A to Point B. In one moment, the viewer observes the admirable Tom and, in the next, shaken by the banging noise of the gunshots, they are scared by the monster that he has become. Aided by Mortensen’s pitch-perfect performance, A History of Violence is as tense as it is self-reflective.

Make no mistake, the film is not an outcry for gun-control or individual-rights, but rather a statement about the ironies of human response to violence. How do Tom/Joey’s actions affect his own psyche and those of the people around him? How does controversy lend to conflicting reactions? The way in which A History of Violence serves as an analysis of these ideas through its suspenseful story is what makes it the astounding movie that it is. Don’t miss it.