Review of A History of Violence (2005) by Bob R — 04 Jan 2014

Tom Stall lives a nice, small life in a quiet Indiana town with his wife and two kids. He runs a family diner, where customers come in with a nice hello and goodbye. Until one day, when 2 men come in looking to solve their financial woes. Afraid someone in the diner could be killed when the men draw guns, Tom catches the thugs off guard and blows them away without second thought. Tom is an 'American hero'. Everyone is amazed at the heroic actions Tom took. Soon after, a media circus swarms Tom and his family looking for comment. Now that Tom has attracted national attention, old friends come to visit him from Philly. These guys know him as Joey. Tom tries his best to convince the men, and his family, that he is not this other man. The more persistent these gangsters are in talking to him, the more everyone starts to ask the question: Does Tom Stall have a history of killing? Is this innocent family man hiding a brutal past?

A History of Violence is a decent collaboration brought to us by David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen. It's a well crafted crime thriller, but feels a bit squandered and wasted. The movie features a great 2/3 acts, until it kind of blows its wad in the final act. It gets violent, and kind of exciting, but adds up to some of my easy predictions. A History of Violence has a problem with shying away from the predictability. From the impending truth that Tom is a veteran killer, to the minor sub plot of weak son vs. dumb jock. The movie suffers from some cliche elements that make it hard for the film to stand out from other crime flicks. A great part of the film, Ed Harris' Carl Fogarty, goes too soon, worrying me that the story has hit it's peak. To top it off, the movie comes to a close with a rather ambiguous ending that leaves a sour taste.

Although this final act drags the quality down a bit, a majority of the film is actually pretty damn good. There is an interest in why Tom is so good at killing. There is a mystery behind the Carl Fogarty character. This 'History of Violence' Tom has, is something we want to investigate a whole lot more. Maybe seeing and learning less about his past is the point. Maybe we need to wonder about his whole past. We see the people from his past, but don't learn anything about what happened with Fogarty and his men in Tom's Past. The mystery can work for it and against, but A History of Violence has enough pros to outweigh the cons that come with a disappointing conclusion.

David Cronenberg's A History of Violence is an intriguing, mysterious, crime drama, that struggles to hold up leading into a risky final act.