History of Violence (2005) – David Cronenberg (Friday’s Finest)

In the first 15 minutes, History of Violence presents the scenes and events of any town USA: a small-town diner, a baseball game, and a sneering, varsity high school bully. It’s a facade of sorts; the calm before the storm. It soon gets blurry and icky when our protagonist Tom Stalls (Viggo Mortenson) the owner of the diner single-handedly foils a robbery and saves a few lives (as presented at the bottom of this post). Sometimes as an audience member coming into a movie, knowing less is more and that’s certainly the case for History of Violence. I’ll leave the rest of the plot I’m willing to disclose in the IMDB Storyline below.

What I like most about History of Violence is how its fond of feinting toward familiar territory, only to veer away. Just when we think we’ve seen if before, in Natural Born Killers, Cape Fear, and the “just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in” tropes of countless crime flicks, it shifts its focus. The contemplation of violence, both pre and post-facto, rather than the acts themselves, drive the film. A History of Violence doesn’t force itself with preaching or moralizing, but simply unfolds.

IMDB Storyline:

Leading a happy and quiet life with his lawyer wife and their two children in the small town of Millbrook, Indiana, mild-mannered Tom Stall cherishes his simple, uneventful existence. However, their idyllic lifestyle is shattered when, one night, Tom saves his customers and friends in self-defence, foiling a vicious attempted robbery in his diner by two violent wanted criminals. Now, heralded as a local hero, Tom’s life is changed overnight, attracting unwanted attention, and a national media feeding frenzy. Uncomfortable with his newfound celebrity, Tom tries to return to normalcy, only to find himself confronted by a mysterious man who arrives in town believing Tom is the man who wronged him in the past. More and more, as Tom and his family struggle to cope with their new reality and this case of mistaken identity, they have no other choice but to fight back and protect all that they hold dear. But, is there more to Tom than meets the eye? Does he have, indeed, a history of violence?

The following are extracts from the Wikipedia reference below:

A History of Violence is a 2005 action thriller film directed by David Cronenberg and written by Josh Olson. It is an adaptation of the 1997 graphic novel of the same title by John Wagner and Vince Locke. It was in the main competition for the 2005 Palme d’Or. It has been described as one of the greatest films of the 2000s and praised for its performances, screenwriting and atmosphere. It is also notable as being one of the last major Hollywood films to be released on VHS.
On Rotten Tomatoes, 88% of 216 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.90/10 and Metacritic assigned the film a score of 82 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating “universal acclaim“.

Interesting Trivia from IMDB:

• For the sex scene on the stairs, David Cronenberg was concerned about the two actors getting hurt on the hard wooden steps. He asked his stunt man whether or not he had any stunt pads for the sex scene. Pads were not used for most of the scene however, and in the shot when Edie is naked on the bed with bruises visible on her back, make-up was used to hide the amount of bruises that Maria Bello received from the scene.
• William Hurt received an Oscar nomination for this film for Best Supporting Actor despite only being in one scene which lasted less than 10 minutes.
• The first four minutes and 28 seconds of the movie at the seedy roadside hotel is a single, uninterrupted take without a single cut until Billy enters the motel office.
• Actor Viggo Mortensen praised the film as “one of the best movies [he’s] ever been in, if not the best“, also declaring it was a “perfect film noir” or “close to perfect“.

References:
1. A History of Violence – Wikipedia
2. A History of Violence – IMDB

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“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand