Popular movies nowadays seem to have two key elements: sex and violence. "A History of Violence" has plenty of both, but little else.
The film follows the story of Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), a standup guy who has raised his family in one of those small towns where everyone knows everyone, and miraculously, they all like each other, too. The Stalls live a simple life that borders on dull, if not cloyingly sweet, wholesome perfection.
This idyllic image is juxtaposed against the brutality that follows when Tom's diner is robbed and he proficiently murders the perpetrators. His actions bring up questions about his identity and dredge up a past he denies. So what happens when a couple of mobsters come to town claiming that Tom has a long list of past offenses against them and seek revenge? Viewers don't know and, frankly, the film doesn't either.
At the movie's onset, Tom is established as a well-intentioned father, promising his daughter that there is no such thing as monsters. If this were a horror flick, the audience would be screaming "NOOO!" right about now. Of course there are monsters, kid, and your daddy's one of them!
Her older brother Jack (Ashton Holmes) then chimes in, explaining that there are monsters, but not to worry because they remain in the dark. Dun-dun-duuun...get ready, sweetie, because daddy's about to pull a "Here's Johnny!"
Despite Tom's apparent gentleness and his son's witticisms, the characters are ultimately portrayed as being at the whim of their basest animalistic instincts. Violence and sexuality go hand in hand, merging into the same primitive urge. One minute, Tom and his wife Edie (Maria Bello) are fighting, the next they're having angry sex. And while it might be an exciting scene, one has a hard time swallowing the motivation.
Mortensen, best known for his role as Aragorn in the "The Lord of The Rings" trilogy, is no stranger to playing the hero, but gives a flat performance as Tom. While he's great at simulating believable fighting, Mortensen doesn't have the depth necessary to pull off the kind of transformation his character undergoes. The supporting actors all give impressive performances, especially Ed Harris and William Hurt, but they're not enough to make up for Mortensen.
In a particularly effective sequence, Jack is repeatedly emasculated by the school bully who uses words like 'pussy' and 'cocksucker' while breathing down the back of Jack's neck, only inches from his victim. This addition of homoerotic undertones takes the mingling of sex and violence even further.
Given the film's underlying focus on the relationship between aggression and human nature, it is obligated to grapple with this topic in a meaningful way. When it doesn't, the audience is left very unsatisfied; it becomes nothing more than a great action flick.
David Cronenberg directs a solid plot and the movie raises questions well worth asking about our society's definition of manliness, but the film never answers these questions and pretty much abandons them as soon as they're introduced. The audience is left wondering, are our aggressive selves our true selves? Is the civilized repression of aggression nothing more than a charade?
The movie avoids passing judgment on its topic, which feels a little creepy; dead bodies are left to pile up, unattached to the lives they lived. Forget about the sociopathic mobsters, even the townies seem a little unfeeling with a lot of unnecessarily forced tears and no real emotional connection between them. Instead, physical connection is used as a stand-in to convey the strength of a relationship: from sex to hugs to punches.
The film has very little dialogue, and when it is present, the characters seem like inept male stereotypes fumbling around with their emotions. When are we going to learn that if we'd all just talk about our violent histories, our relationships would be better for it? Well, that might be pushing it, but a little conversation before sex or death would be nice.
All in all, "A History of Violence" is worth seeing just for the incredible plot, even if the rest of the movie doesn't follow suit. And if that's not reason enough, the lead actors are sexy and the violence bloody.
