Review of A History of Violence

A few people have asked me why I gave A History of Violence such a low grade, so here is my attempt to explain that and I guess write a review. Luckily, it has been a few weeks since I've seen it, so I'll be a little more tempered, especially since the Grandmother of Europe liked it and I hate to offend her since we are doing our part to save OKC's air quality.

First of all, I got the movie on Netflix because YHWH wanted to see it as she had heard, "it's s'posed to be pretty good." I guess I had heard the same, from people like Ebert and also Cannes. YHWH didn't get around to watching it, but I went ahead just so I wouldn't waste the rental. I ended up watching it by myself with an usual quietude in the house. Which was good, because many times I laughed heartily outloud at the amateurish dialog and cloying plot devices.

The movie begins with two ice cool killers who swiftly and silently kill a family of motel proprietors, including a toddler, rather than pay their bill. Later, we see them in Everytown, USA where they encounter two high school hooligans who curse at them and threaten them. The killers simply stare coldy back at them in silence and the hoods flee with their tails dragging. Next they enter a cafe at closing time with at least four people in it and order coffee. When they are refused, the elder of the two screams, "I SAID COFFEE!!" That was my first laugh. That was so out of character. I wasn't old enough to remember the Stafford spree here, but I'm betting it didn't go down like this. Anyway, they grab a waitress and it ends in a shoot out with both of them dead at the hand of the owner.

From then on, director Cronenberg trots out cardboard standups from old westerns, film noir, and every high school movie ever made. Yes, the lead character's son is in HS. He has a girlfriend who is the ex of the town bully and they tease him mercilessly. The boy shows great maturity and restraint in dealing with the bully, but after his father becomes Charles Bronson, it subconsciously occurs to him that it's OK if he beats the boy to verge of death. And of course the boys are wearing letter jackets. Letter jackets? Do they even make those anymore?

It turns out the father was not the family man he had been for 17 or so years, but a former mob enforcer who got religion. People from his past show up to reel him back in, but he kills them, too. The wife is angry, boohoo, because he lied to her about his past while he pouts and tried to remain good. That happens in every chick flick ever made - the guy lies to impress her and she's mad when she finds out, but sees the real him after all. That happens here, too, only to convince her, he has to brutally rough her up while they have makeup sex. Huh? I mean what was he supposed to do? Admit to several murders? He reinvented himself, and that is the man she knew. How hard is that to understand? From then on Cronenberg has spliced in parts of all the Dirty Harry movies and all the Death Wish movies. The main character drives to the east coast to kill everyone he knew, but now he has the wife's blessing. I'm really not sure why he felt the need to do that and I don't get where she's coming from. There's a lot of that in this movie.

It's possible I judge this movie more harshly because of the press it got, but I doubt it. The script really is that bad. I'm afraid they got lazy and lifted the storyboard right off the pages of the graphic novel and left the dialog in it. I read lots of GNs and I can tell you they aren't script quality. After I saw this I checked the reviews and it's so sad. It was so vacuous that I'm guessing the reviewers figured since it was Cronenberg he knows what he's doing and since they didn't get it, it must be art. There's all this talk about how American society has all these undercurrents of violence and this film shows the layers of violence we all live with and so on. Really? America is violent? I missed that somewhere. It must have been while I was watching football. Or I was busy writing a theme on cartoons and chilren's television like every kid in America has done at least once. Or I didn't notice that CSI and Law and Order are the biggest shows on TV. And I had somehow not noticed we have troops in Iraq. Oh, I know, I had rap music going on in my iPod and didn't hear the news that America is violent. If you really want to understand the concept of a violent America watch Rocky. That's one of the most artful looks at violence ever filmed.

My final feeling about it is that it's really sad that the director of Scanners and Videodrome and eXistenZ ends up doing a movie like this. Especially after Spider, which was a fantastic movie.

I apologize for the quality of this post. I haven't really ever written reviews, so it will have to take practice.