David Cronenberg’s new film might refer either to that history in the family or, more ambitiously, in the United States. Certainly the effects are the same; dramatic excitement followed by destruction and a sense of total devastation and meaninglessness.
The narrative tells of Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) , happily married and running a diner in a small town in Indiana, whose violent past catches up with him. The tale involves two gunmen who arrive to search out this gang traitor and owes much to Hemingway’s short story, The Killers. Initially one is uncertain as to whether Tom is the traitor Cusack, and if so, whether his murderous past will catch up with him. Has he changed his nature and found a new life, and if so, will he escape retribution?
This classic situation is central to Gary Cooper in Man of the West, Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, and other Westerns. Here it makes a taut and finely acted thriller. I was glad I saw it instead of Pride and Prejudice, which was sold out on its last performance, for a greater contrast would be hard to imagine.
Viggo Mortensen stars as Tom Stall, a quiet, easygoing family man who runs a diner in a small Indiana town. When when two criminals come into the restaurant prepared to wreak havoc, Stall turns hero and shoots them both. After Stall's story is blasted all over the media, Philly mobster Carl Fogaty shows up, claiming that Tom is actually former hit man Eddie Cusack and they've got some important business to finish. While Stall insists that Fogaty is mistaken, his family his wife and family get dragged into the danger that constantly threatens to explode. Cronenberg does a masterly job of creating a wholly believable modern world where evil lurks just around the corner.
Described variously by critics as Cronenberg’s most commercial film since The Dead Zone (1983) and as a gripping meta-thriller that probes into the audience’s lust for... more >
Described variously by critics as Cronenberg’s most commercial film since The Dead Zone (1983) and as a gripping meta-thriller that probes into the audience’s lust for screen bloodshed, A History of Violence is an unsettling, masterfully directed addition to the Canadian auteur’s oeuvre.
The film opens with a languid tracking shot of the front of a motel following the slow progress of a convertibile from which two killers are about to complete an assignment. It could be argued that this sequence, in which small town placidity is shattered by a shocking act of violence, serves as a microcosm of the film as a whole. However, unlike the rest of the film - in which bursts of violence are hyper-stylised, balletic, even blackly comic - the opening scene climaxes with the merciless killing of a young girl.
Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) is a happily-married, well-liked owner of a small diner in Millbrook, Indiana. As the diner is wrapping up one night, two men arrive (the killers from the opening scene) demanding to be served. When Tom refuses, the men become violent, one threatening to rape the waitress. Pushed to the limit, Tom explodes into a fury of violence, gunning down both men with an effortlessness and precision that is as unlikely as it is chilling. Proclaimed a local hero, his new-found fame leads to the arrival in town of mobster Carl Fogerty (Ed Harris).
Cronenberg’s twisty thriller features an excellent, low-key central performance from Mortensen, his bare-fisted mauling of gun-toting henchmen (as super-human as any Schwarzenegger or Seagal actioner) rendered all the more visceral through his underplaying.
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The Lives of Others
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A History Of Violence
