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A Violent ‘History of Violence’

By EMILY BALDWIN

Ok, so I hadn’t seen any previews for “A History of Violence,” but I had heard from friends that the previews looked good, and I had also heard that critics were enjoying the film.

Tom, played by Viggo Mortensen of Lord of the Rings fame, is the owner of a diner in a small town. He is happily married to Edie (Maria Bello) and has two children who adore him. When two serial criminals attempt to rob his diner, Tom’s decisive and deadly instincts stop them in their tracks and make Tom a local hero. After seeing him on TV, a troop of mobsters from Philly (Ed Harris, William Hurt) pay Tom a visit. They are convinced that Tom is really a man named Joey, a man who has wronged them in the past. Tom holds to his story that he is a simple man from Seattle and that he has never even been to Philly, but he risks losing everything he loves.

Usually when I don’t know much about a film before I see it, I have few expectations for it. Unfortunately, this indie-film by director David Cronenberg fell short even of my lowered expectations.

“A History of Violence” was merely an attempt at putting as much gratuitous sex and violence as possible on screen in the name of independent film making. In the first scene three people, including a child, are violently murdered. Throughout the film we are witness to over a dozen gruesome and explicit acts of violence.

Sure, I’m a girl, and no, I don’t particularly like violent movies. However, when tastefully done, and when it furthers the plot of the film, I can get over the violence that is so prevalent in movies these days. Do I really need to see a bullet imbedded into the forehead of a man, or brain tissue splattered onto the face of a teenager in order to get the point? How about seeing these same images ten times over, all in 96 minutes.

The subplot involving Tom’s teenage son, an un-athletic pushover who has problems with the bullies at school, does little to bring a positive element into the film. He stands up for himself by beating the living daylights out of his arch enemy, and kills a mobster to save his father, but the story line falls flat in its attempt at what I can only imagine is supposed to be redemption.

There are two graphic sex scenes in this film, one of which results from a brutal hitting match between husband and wife; this is followed by a scene with full frontal nudity.

I didn’t feel like the characters were developed as well as they could have been. Rather than spending so much time on the violent scenes, Cronenberg should have spent time expanding the side stories and minor characters.

Overall it left me feeling disappointed and wishing I had gone to see “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” At least I would have left the theater smiling.

(half-star)