SquigglyCrunch
A History of Violence follows a father who supposedly had a history with some mysterious people who arrive in his town. They begin to pursue him, and he and his family have to deal with them. One standout of this movie is the violence itself. It's underglorified quite a bit, and it really works with the movie and the tone it's trying to set. Throughout the movie I actually found myself questioning it, whether or not the men pursuing Mortensen's character did know him or had the wrong guy. It ends up going for the predictable route, which was disappointing, but it did okay with the unclear build up. The story itself is pretty generic, and while that isn't a bad thing, it doesn't do much about that. It handles it's plot in a way that one might expect, and falls short as a result. There were a handful of moments throughout the movie where I thought "Wow, that was really good" and then 4 seconds later it was back to mediocrity. The writing and presentation just wasn't all that unique, and frankly it was uninteresting. The movie takes about an hour to get going, and for a 95 minute movie that could prove problematic. In this case, that is true. The movie drags for at least a full 60 minutes before anything really impactful happens, leaving about 35 minutes for it to wrap itself up, and it rushes. The climax is so quick and anti-climatic. And with the dragged out hour of almost nothing I was nowhere near invested. A rushed climax didn't help that. Also William Hurt got an Oscar nomination for this movie. Is he in it? Not really, he's an extra at best. He has a role for about 10 minutes of the climax, maybe less, and his performance is nothing short of okay. This isn't a flaw with the movie, but rather just an expression of my frustration. I can't believe this guy got an Oscar nomination for saying a few (emphasis on 'a few') lines and walking around a little. He doesn't even do anything in the movie, and it makes me so frustrated when the Academy pulls stuff like this. Overall A History of Violence is an unconventional movie done completely wrong. It's drawn out to an almost boring degree, and the vast majority of it is generic, with the exception of the violence, some of the build up, and just a few miscellaneous points here and there. In the end I wouldn't recommend this movie.
midas-jacobs
"A History of Violence". In the so called movie, we meet our protagonist Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), a normal dad, well it seems like that anyway. When he is forced to kill two people, to save the life of a woman, his past starts to catch up with him..."A History of Violence" is directed by David Cronenberg. He did a very good job at directing it. What also added to the movie was that he'd worked with Viggo Mortensen before (Eastern Promises). He also used some shots, that not a lot of movies would dare to use, but it worked in this movie. He has his own special style, which is a very good style. That he has his own style is also a good thing, you can have your own style like Micheal Bay, but also like Christopher Nolan, and he is reaching to the Nolan side. If that made some sense for you. The cinematography was good too, every shot looked pretty, and I don't really have to say anything else about this part. Like my title says there is a lot of violence, well not just my title, but also the title of the movie. The violence is done very good. The blood looked great, just like the gore. Not at one point in the movie I would say that it was obviously fake. Theses scenes were also very well directed. How he showed you things, and some things not, so there could be a reveal. But he also forced you to look at specific things in these shots. Birilliantly directed. The soundtrack of the movie was very good too, so was the costume design. The sound, not the soundtrack, was well edited and chosen. The issue that I have with the movie, is that there were some moments that it felt like they dubbed over some of the movie parts. An example is early on in the movie when Tom and his wife are sitting in the car, and having a conversation. The make-up of the eye of Fogarty was also very good. You knew that it was fake, but it looked convincing enough. The editing was good to, I only managed to catch one mistake, so that's good. (The son switches arm position between edits in the locker room)The acting was one of the big and best parts. The main character, our protagonist, is like I've said, Tom Stall. Tom was played by Viggo Mortensen. I knew that he could act from seeing "The road" and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, but I think that he did one of his best acting jobs in this movie. He was very convincing as a normal house dad, but also how he could make the switch in becoming a killer called Joey, his past self. On the characters I'll touch a bit later on in this review. But he was very good. The next person I'm going to talk about is his wife. She is called Edie Stall, and was played by the lovely Maria Bello. She was very good too. From her we got to see a more emotional side, which she handled very well. This is a hard part for some actors, but not for her. The antagonist of "A History of Violence" was Carl Fogarty, he was played by Ed Harris. Ed Harris is a very good villain. In this movie, but also in a lot of other movies. You also have the helpers of the story, these are the son and daughter of Tom. The son had a bigger role. He was very good. The rest of the supporting cast was good as well.The script was for me the best part of the movie, followed by the acting. The dialogue was good, and funny even at moments. The characters were well created and original. For example the interesting character of Tom. You were left in the dark with him, and slowly as the movie progressed, you got to know more of him. This was a very good feature. You could guess what was going on, but you weren't entirely sure about it. The story was good too, just one thing that I didn't like, but what was necessarily to the story. This was the side storyline of the son and his cliché bully. At first I thought that it was just one cliché bit, and that it was unnecessarily, but this builds up to a character arc. And eventually to a similar one, again. This was a Love-Hate part for me. The other characters were also well made, but not always developed. This wasn't something that would add to the movie, so I'm glad that they didn't put big effort in that. The story decreases in quality for me near the end. It still stays good, but not as good as the previous part, that's why the movie loses a point, for me and goes from a nine to a 8.1. That was my review for the "A History of Violence". I think that this was a very good movie, it's dark and gritty. It has great characters and great violence. 8.1/10
