Review of A History of Violence (2005) by Odjento — 29 Sep 2015

The Scores for this film truly bewilder me as this is possible one of the worst films I’ve seen in a while: and I love Viggo Mortensen!

The film has a simple premise but doesn’t seem to really build up to anything from it. Viggo’s character saves a community from criminals in a violent fashion and gets called a hero, but also attracts the Mob’s attention who think they know him. The premise never fully goes anywhere and the direction is all over the place, as in one scene where Cronenberg uses a panning shot that descends onto a boy at a baseball game. WHY USE THAT THERE? There are also far too many cuts in some scenes for instance, when Viggo returns home and it has a shot of everyone in his family in turn over and over and it was just too painful.

Then there is the “acting”. Viggo does an alright job of speaking quietly and then bursting into violence but nothing really is noteworthy about it. Maria Bello is awful in her role and is difficult to watch and the young teenager goes from doing an alright job to becoming worse as the film goes on. Then the 2 villains in the film hardly get enough screen time to really develop or become interested in or even really enjoy watching.

Then there are plenty of scenes that are just kind of unnecessary, one scene in particular being a perceived rape scene (which would’ve added controversy yes but really shown more about Viggo’s character) and turns it into a consensual and erotic staircase sex scene that just comes out of the blue and seems completely absurd. The directing of it is pretty shabby also, at one point cutting to a shot or the bottom of the stair case where you can see on leg moving slightly. Hmmm, such a vital shot. Straight after this they then also add in some unneeded nudity just to hopefully gain viewers interest for a few seconds again.

I really, really, really struggled to even attempt to enjoy this movie. The violent scenes are pretty unexpected and gruesome but they can’t give this film a better rating when the majority of the rest of the film is a trainwreck. Please try miss this for your own sake and money.

2.