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A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (2005) (****)

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David Cronenberg is best known for his horror films like THE FLY and VIDEODROME. Of late he has been moving into more dramatic territory with films like SPIDER. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE is his most mainstream film and probably his best film thus far.

Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen, LORD OF THE RINGS) is a family man who owns a diner in a small Mid-Western town. One day, gun-totting bad guys come to the diner looking to rob it. We already know they’re cold-blooded killers. Soon enough Tom has disarmed and killed the men, becoming a reluctant hero to his town. He is also a hero to his loving wife Edie (Maria Bello, THE COOLER) and his son Jack (Ashton Holmes, TV’s ONE LIFE TO LIVE), who is picked on by the jocks at school. The media attention given to Tom then brings new bad men to town. Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris, APOLLO 13) is a gangster from Philly who believes Tom is not the person he says he is.

The film is a meditation on violence in all its manifestations. It deals with how some people try to avoid it and how some people embrace it, as well as how it affects us all. The film especially shows how violence affects the Stall family.

The performances are all solid. Mortensen is so subtle with his performance that you might miss the nuances of how his character changes. Bello is extremely solid as usual. She is sexy, smart and brings real depth to the character. Harris is good as the scarred gangster, but William Hurt in a cameo role as gangster Richie Cusack makes a big impression. It’s not that the role is revolutionary, but that Hurt plays against his typical intellectual type to great effect.

The film can be brutal at times, but with a title like A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE what do you expect? It’s one of the best films of the year.

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Rick DeMott
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