A History of Violence   
 

Tom Stall: Viggo Mortensen

Edie Stall: Maria Bello

Carl Fogarty: Ed Harris

Richie Cusack: William Hurt

Jack Stall: Ashton Holmes

 

Directed by David Cronenberg

 

Screenplay by Josh Olson

 

Based on the graphic novel by

John Wagner and Vince Locke

 

I get it.  Violence is bad.  It's both corruptible and pure, disgusting and mesmerizing, innate and learned.  In other words, it's dangerous.  But I have seen many films and read many books that treated this subject matter more deftly than this glorified movie-of-the-week.  And that's a shame, because a disturbing and powerful opening scene is tossed aside as a footnote.

A History of Violence centers on Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) and his family living in a small Indiana town. One night, Tom prevents a robbery of his diner by killing two men and becomes an instant hero. After his picture is splashed on evening news programs around the country, Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), a man with mob ties in Philadelphia, shows up at the diner claiming that Tom is actually someone else.

The movie toys a little with the mistaken identity/former life mystery for a little while, but it soon becomes clear that Tom had left behind his life as Joey Cusack, and these people want him to pay for his past transgressions.  The movie builds up to a confrontation between Tom/Joey and his brother Richie, a wealthy high-ranking mob boss who has never forgiven his brother for being born. 

William Hurt plays Richie and provides the lone bright spot of the film, delivering a scenery-chewing and commanding performance in a very limited amount of screen time.

There is another subplot involving Tom's son, Jack, which is so implausible it actually becomes humorous.  It begins when Jack catches a fly ball in a high school gym class softball game.  The person who hit it takes offense and confronts him in the locker room after class, which sets off a series of bully/victim moments before Jack beats the crap out of him (there's that violence thing again).

First of all, you don't play fast-pitch softball in high school gym with a full bench and a coach donning umpiring gear behind home plate. Secondly, the actions of the jock are ridiculous.  Nobody would get upset about someone catching a fly ball in a softball game and his actions and motives are so over the top and unbelievable that the entire subplot falls apart.  The dumb, muscle-head jock is such an overused and inaccurate cliché that is unfortunate that this film relies on it so heavily.

The final scene is so forced that it is painful to watch.  It almost appears that the actors are about to break into laughter.  Now that I think about it, that would have probably made for an improved ending.  And maybe a more biting indictment of the culture of violence this film seems to be speaking against.

Instead, we get a boring and straightforward film that goes exactly where you expect it to go – nowhere.