31- A History of Violence

A little girl cries in her sleep. Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), her father, rushes to her bedside. She says that monsters lurk under her bed, but Tom simply holds her and assures her that no monsters exist. A few hours before, not too far away, two men shoot another little girl in the face.

A History of Violence is an exploration of the ugliness of violence and the haunting physical and mental scars it leaves. No matter where the characters are, violence menacingly looms overhead, a snake that can choose to eat the mouse at a time of its choice.

Tom runs a small town diner, has two kids and a wife (Maria Bello) that playfully dons a cheerleader outfit before sex. One night, the two murderers slither into his diner, fully intending to massacre everyone inside. Tom uncoils like a spring, easily and messily dispatching both men in the blink of an eye. People are shocked at this mild mannered man’s apparent prowess at killing, and he becomes one of those day long media sensations, his face plastered across the TV news.

The next day, Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris) a venomous gangster with a horrific scar shows up at the diner, only he calls Tom ‘Joey’ and seems to think they knew each other in Philadelphia. Tom quietly denies this, though Fogarty is 100% certain that Tom once tried to rip his eye out with barbed wire. Fogarty turns out not to be the type of man who cares much for an apology.

A History of Violence contains some of the more gruesome kills ever put to film, but interestingly Tom and his family never strike except in self defense. Tom always tries to walk away or rectify the situation, but it doesn’t work. In lieu of peaceful solutions, his ability to kill people by smashing their noses into their brains and crushing their larynx’s by foot opens a startling window into Tom’s soul, one that he had hoped was forever closed. A final meeting with Ritchie (the brilliant Willam Hurt), his estranged, murderous brother, ensures the window will never again close.

Tom’s son serves as an interesting parallel; bullied at school, he tries to walk away, but attacks in self-defense and ends up severely mauling his teenage tormentor. The realization that Tom has lived another, murderous life burns slowly to his wife. When she lashes out at him, Tom’s violently sexual reaction illustrates how deeply the recent bloodshed has tapped into Joey, his former self.

Director David Cronenberg does well with the material, though it falls short at times. There exists a disconnect from the characters at certain points where we should be as close to them as possible. Examining Cronenberg’s filmography, this makes sense; the director of far out plot driven films such as Scanners and Videodrome, he struggles with the strong characterization of the story. A director like Martin Scorsese could do better with both characters and violence, while David Lynch and his obsession with small town USA would serve the story well.

A History of Violence argues that violence is wrong, but exists everywhere, and serves as its own most effective solution. By the end, we are served a critique of humanity, because humans are naturally violent, and if killing works so well as a solution to our problems, then we can never be right.

4 out of 5