A History of Violence

[KLAXXON]

Tom Stall (Mortensen) had the perfect life until one day… he became a hero.

One day, in the quiet town he now calls home, his diner is robbed at gunpoint. Unfortunately for the would-be robber he has chosen the wrong diner to hold up. When Tom’s wife Edie (Bello) is threatened Tom tackles the man and kills him, with surprising ease.

Most of the town just want to praise Tom as a local hero, until a mysterious man appears among them. Carl Fogarty (Harris) appears to know more about Tom than people would expect, especially Tom’s wife to whom he asks the ominous question “you should ask Tom... why is he so good at killing people”?

This question has a ripple effect creating a whole group of even more unsettling questions. Does Tom have a hidden past? Has he put his wife in mortal danger? Is Tom even his real name?


Though this is certainly Cronenberg’s most ‘mainstream’ movie in years, the fact that it’s so immediately enjoyable as a terrific thriller does not diminish its less obvious virtues. Indeed, its apparent effortlessness in transcending simple generic concerns to interrogate a range of issues surrounding violence, justice, heroism and identity should not distract attention from its subtly subversive critique of the American Dream (or should one say nightmare?). Diner proprietor Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), his lawyer wife Edie (Maria Bello) and their two kids seem to have a pretty idyllic existence in smalltown America until a couple of gleefully murderous hoods turn up by chance at the eaterie, and an order for coffee escalates to terrorising Tom and his customers. Quick thinking on his part leads to reluctant celebrity – and, still more unwelcome – further visits, from sinister wise guys hinting that Tom may not be quite the clean-cut Ordinary Joe he says he is. Besides playing fast and loose (in the most elegantly rigorous way, of course) with family-under-siege thriller conventions, Cronenberg deftly undermines narrative expectations by implying that happy families may in fact be forms of imprisonment, and that trying to conform to an American way may involve lying to ourselves and others about the very human capacity for monstrosity. Here, as a repressed past erupts with a vengeance, violence begets violence, and safe, traditional ethics are swiftly revealed as virtually irrelevant. All this is executed with Cronenberg's now customarily brilliant wit, bravura style and perfect pacing, not to mention peak-form performances from a superb cast that memorably includes William Hurt and Ed Harris. Unlike the tough but unremarkable pulp fiction of the original graphic novel, the film (which differs from the book in numerous important respects) succeeds not only in terms of action and suspense but as cautionary fable, historical allegory, social satire and moral disquisition. In short, it’s marvellous, and up there with ‘Spider’ as Cronenberg’s very best work.

Even David Cronenberg fans will have to admit that the director’s output has been variable of late. After the Daily Mail fomented brouhaha over Crash he seemed to find it difficult to find a project that fully engaged him. Existenz had the odd nice idea but the slightly mildewed feeling of grandad discovering there was somewhere called virtual reality a decade after everyone else had moved on, while many found Spider maddeningly abstruse. A History Of Violence is a confident return to form and his most accessible film since The Fly, delivering what is in essence a comic-book fable heavily influenced by Westerns, but sneaking the familiar Cronenbergian themes in through the back door.

On the surface History bears more than a passing resemblance to Straw Dogs in its tale of Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) an apparently peaceful man forced to take action when he and his family are threatened first by a pair of psycho hillbillies and then by a set of hoods from Philly headed up by Ed Harris.

Cronenberg doesn’t do much to disguise the story’s genesis as a graphic novel, painting the characters and locals in broad pop-cinema strokes that sometimes sit (deliberately) uneasily with the sudden, explosive violence and leaving the audience uncomfortable about how to react - when the movie screened in Cannes an audience laugh provoked one irritated viewer to yell “Stop laughing you fucking piece of shit critics and take this film seriously!”.

The fact is you can, and are probably meant to do both as lurking underneath the plot mechanics and gory set pieces (surprisingly well wrought from a director whose ideas are often superior to his technical skills) are Cronenberg’s usual concerns: violence is seen as a contagion, arriving like a virus uninvited into the family’s lives, slowly infecting each of them: Stall’s son winds up putting a school bully in hospital, the couple’s sex life mutates from the eroticism of an early sex scene to something darker and more sadistic in a subsequent one. Meanwhile like Seth Brundle in The Fly or Max Renn in Videodrome Tom Stall is a man caught in the midst of a horrifying metamorphosis that he is powerless to control - from family man to professional killer.

Cronenberg’s film quietly challenges your reactions to the violence as you enjoy it and its enigmatic, haunting final scene is as much about its audience as about the characters on screen.


Cronenberg’s best for a long time, broad and entertaining enough for those unacquainted with the director’s work, but layered with the themes of infection and mutation that have defined his work.


Viggo Mortensen ... Tom Stall
Maria Bello ... Edie Stall
Ed Harris ... Carl Fogarty
William Hurt ... Richie Cusack
Ashton Holmes ... Jack Stall
Peter MacNeill ... Sheriff Sam Carney
Stephen McHattie ... Leland
Greg Bryk ... Billy
Kyle Schmid ... Bobby
Sumela Kay ... Judy Danvers
Gerry Quigley ... Mick
Deborah Drakeford ... Charlotte
Heidi Hayes ... Sarah Stall
Aidan Devine ... Charlie Roarke
Bill MacDonald ... Frank Mulligan


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