| A History Of Violence (2005) Cast:Viggo Mortensen, Ed Harris, Maria Bello, William Hurt Tom Stall (Mortensen) is a regular joe who is working at his cafe when robbers bust in, unknown to him Stall that he has killer instinct, he jumps in and kills everyone without any hesitation and in doing so becomes a hero, however it turns out has a past and mobsters (Led by Harris and Hurt) look to put the squash on our would be hero in this frustrating and mainly uninteresting thriller which is far to pretentious and empy to deserve the acclaim it has received. One of the main things that irks me about this alleged thriller is that with a quick rewrite this could've easily been Bloodfist IX: A History Of Violence with the overall creativity and conviction in it's source material it contains. Although Don "The Dragon" Wilson wouldn't have tried to take such laughable material so seriously. It's not that I was disappointed by the lack of action in this, I expected general intellegence and intriguing plot developments (Indeed a split personality sub-plot possibility leads nowhere) but for some reason the movie never engages and never once convinces that we are watching material more at home in a Bloodfist sequel. Even more shocking are the embarrassing performances from the usually reliable William Hurt and Ed Harris. Indeed only The Razzies should've awarded Hurt's shamelessly hammy performance. Viggo Mortensen gives a decent performance but his character is so muddled and underdeveloped that we can't care for him and the movie takes some very unnecessary scenes including a bordeline rape scene as well as a mano-a-mano fight against Viggo's son and the bully. Worst of all the script is just badly written with some of the most eye-rolling cliches this side of a Steven Seagal actioner. Indeed for a far more enjoyable type of thriller such as this, try Taxi Driver or 52 Pick-Up, at least those explored the personality of the characters involved. D.David Cronenberg * |