A History of Violence 2005
This is a good movie with some serious flaws. The movie opens with two men who we can tell are up to no good and we soon find out they are killers making their way across the country. It then shifts to the main characters, showing a nice small-town family where the husband runs a diner and the wife is a lawyer.
Soon the main character, played by Vigo Mortensen, has his past hunt him down. We don’t know how long he’s been living in the small town, but he has a teenage son and a young daughter and his wife is oblivious to his former life. You are not supposed to know whether he really is a former gangster or not, but the reviews I read and some other clues tell you he probably is. So all the hand-wringing over that seems kind of wasted. It would have been better, I think, just to accept that. Eventually there is a standoff with some visiting gangsters led by Ed Harris and he must return to Philadelphia to make amends if he is ever to be left alone. At this point the movie is practically over, so there is an odd story arc going on here that doesn’t take a conventional path. Late in the movie we are introduced to another character, played by William Hurt (who received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor, so you know he has to show up eventually). Hurt is really great as a funny, violent, loving, but vengeful crime boss. His scenes are a highlight of the movie even though they seem almost out of place.
So there are some great elements here, but somehow it doesn’t work. Some of the acting, particularly by the Vigo’s children, is dreadful. There is a strong emphasis in the movie on the family, and yet they don’t necessarily do things a family would do. When the wife finds out about Vigo’s past, she gets upset that she has been lied to, but he doesn’t really try that hard to explain things and instead stands there with stony silence. Any man whose wife was that mad at him would be talking a mile a minute trying to hit on any kind of explanation that would calm her down. They throw in two very odd sex scenes between Vigo and his wife, I guess the first one setting up the latter, but again it didn’t feel realistic or like it belonged.
The director, David Cronenberg, rose to prominence in the 80’s doing indie sci-fi horror movies like The Fly. It is fun watching the “making of” segments on the DVD. Apparently, though he has a script and sets in advance, he doesn’t set up the shooting in advance using storyboards. Instead he walks around the set with the actors and crew and talks things over until it feels right and then shoots it. This is nice for us because we can watch the thought process. But through interviews with the crew we find out how frustrating it is because none of them have any clue how things are going to be done until it is happening.
Anyway, this is good movie, potentially great, that was hurt by some serious flaws. If you can get around those flaws, then you can really enjoy it. I’ll give it a B.
Written: 07 Jul 2006