A History of Violence
-(Tom Stahl) An ordinary man lives a happy and quiet life with his lawyer wife and their two children in a small town in Millbrook, Indiana. One day his ideal life collapses when he tries to steal his restaurant, saves his friends and restaurant patrons and kills the intruders. His life changes completely; he is described as a hero and the media agencies and journalists come down to cover his story, making him uneasy about highlighting it for such a reason.
25 July 1986, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
1972, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
11 November 1994, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
23 June 1976, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
20 March 1950, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
February 3, 1947 in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
3 February 1947, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada
17 February 1978, Albany, New York, USA
18 April 1967, Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA
30 June 1994, Thornhill, Ontario, Canada
3 August 1984, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
18 February 1963, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
April 20, 2011
Without conceding any of his iconoclastic vision, Cronenberg has turned a genre film with classic Western overtones into a gripping psychological drama that examines the duality of man and his infatuation with the art of violence.
August 16, 2010
While it weakens in its final stretch...A History of Violence succeeds enormously thanks to the strength of its direction and performances.
June 23, 2010
A truly entertaining and engrossing study of violence, family, and our pasts eventually coming back to haunt us...
October 04, 2013
A fascinating exercise in cinematic restraint resulting in a captivating, not to be missed film.
May 12, 2006
A remarkably convincing examination of heroism, hero worship, and the seductive allure of villainy.
December 10, 2015
Hopefully [it will] encourage a sobering sense of responsibility and a more truthful perspective on identities (individual and national).
October 07, 2005
The film, based on a graphic novel, has a crackling sense of visual tension.
April 15, 2013
Cronenberg's direction, mirroring the split in Tom, is alternately measured and frighteningly explosive, and, as always, he gives the movie a nasty underlay of sexual perversity.
November 07, 2012
With A History Of Violence, Cronenberg uses the pulp gangster genre - as opposed to, say, sci-fi horror -- to draw us into a dialogue on our relationship as voyeurs to violence, both real and cinematic.
April 15, 2013
This peculiarly predictable picture has been calculated, or miscalculated, to set up certain expectations, fulfill them, and then do the same thing again, thereby giving us a chance to see what's coming and, at least in theory, be shocked.
October 02, 2005
A model of clean, lean storytelling.
April 15, 2013
The less you know about this movie before seeing it -- and you really should see it -- the better.
