nope!

I didn't have a problem with the movie or the ending. I thought it was fine.

Eh.

It was a good film, but it really left me with a "What the hell?" feeling at the end. It was good on its own, but the story was a bit too odd to really work well. The acting and screenplay were brilliant, but the plot needed some better development. It really started to lag towards the end as well.

B-

a brilliant screenplay with a lagging finale, a story too odd to work well, and an undeveloped plot... :O

the dialog was brilliant?

Are you asking me? Or commenting?

commenting at first, as i'm not sure how a brilliant screenplay can yield such results...

and then asking if you mean the spoken dialogue was brilliant.

i tend to think of the screenplay as being more than just the words (and therefore if the end lags and the story doesnt work well and the plot is not fully fleshed out, i'd say the screenplay was at fault,) so i'm just looking for clarification, i suppose.

Well I thought the plot itself was good up until the major shift occured. The dialogue was great during the early part of it. I think the biggest problem is the final climatic scene could have been completely eliminated without harming the overall quality of the film. In the end though it would have made everything work out better.

Meh! It was OK, the performances were great, but I don’t know I wanted to see more.
And the some of the sex scenes for me were kinda unnecessary especially the one of the stairs

B-

C+

Unfortunatley for me, I thought this movie was the most overrated of the year. I just didn't connect with it at all. It was too short, too arupt, the plot had no depth, there was no character development, etc. There was some interesting violent scenes yes, but they didn't last long and there wasn't that many of them. There was just as much time taken by the 2 sex scenes. Acting by Bello was good, but Viggo was not. Also, the movie has unrealistic holes and flaws all over. A dorky kid would not be able to send 3 jocks to the hospital with his fists. Why did Rich fire 6 point-blank shots at Joe, and miss every one?

Anyways, yeah. I didn't like it.

Now that months have passed, I think this is really a movie that sticks with you. It is still in my Top 10 of the year and is likely to stay there too when all is said and done.

I waited six months...for this!

Viggo Mortissen really can't act to save a life, seriously. The exposition was terrible and many scenes were abrupt and moves a little too quickly to avoid the inconsistancies. Very overrated. However, there was a lot to like as well.

C+

I liked the movie overall more than you, but I agree 100% about Viggo - here's an excerpt from my review earlier in this thread:

I suppose it's still the after effect of LOTR - we'll have to put up with actors like Ego Moron's Son and Orlando Bloomin' Idiot for a couple more years, until directors have exploited their box office draw and realize they can't act worth a damn...

Viggo was brilliant in this?

(and I'm not one of his biggest fans out there...)

The A-(and a bit of B)list who can't act:

Viggo
Orlando
Kirsten
Tobey
James Franco

Of all the more thematically heavy films released last year (Munich, Crash, Capote, etc.), this was by far the hardest for me to wrap my head around.

And I think that's both the film's strongpoint and its minor downfall: Its overt subject matter and scenes don't really mesh with its subtle implications, I thought. This was most likely Cronenberg's intention, but it just didn't hit me like I thought it would, or like it should have.

But it's otherwise a great watch. B+

Probably the best movie of 2005. Viggo Mortensen's slow-burn performance was an effective one, and the conclusion was really well done. The film says a lot about the complexities of individuals and how we're all capable of comitting unspeakable acts, regardless of what one may expect. Even though I liked Crash, I think this movie highlights why so many people didn't. A History of Violence is about not drawing conclusions and relying on the power of ambiguity to make it all the more compelling.

A

Hm... I don't know.

There are times when I really liked it, but as a whole I found it a bit underwhelming. I still liked it a lot though. Some of the material didn't work for me, like Joey/Tom's characterization and other bits...

Overall, its a pretty solid movie. Oh, and I didn't think William Hurt's performance was anything too great. Maria Bello was great though. I thought Viggo was pretty good, too. *shrug*

B/B+.

It just tries to hard and never connects on an emotional level. The characters are stale, especially Viggo who couldn't act to save his life. The story is decent and the movie does have a few good scenes, but the first 20 minutes is hard to get through with all the terrible, terrible acting. Wasn't impressed by Bello, and Ed Harris stole the movie with his performance. I just have very mixed feelings about this one. With the right people it could've been great, but with the wrong people (Viggo) the characters just don't connect.

-B-

This movie was a little hard to take the first time I saw it, but the second time was better. Mario Bello is very underrated in this, as is Ed Harris. William Hurt, while great, may be a little overrated. He does leave a huge impression for the amount of time he's on screen, though.

A-

This film was shockingly graphic, and Im not talking about just the violence.

When the two teens were smoking pot in public?

Great movie. Hurt was superb. I won't lie though, it didn't fully involve me emotionally, but I didn't mind.
A-

One of the most deeply thematic movies I've seen. The film revolves around its message, rather than its story, making it an interesting watch. The act of violence is viewed quite ambiguously, as the film leaves it unsure whether it is justified in self-defense or even as a form of protection. The plot was a bit thin and full of holes, but it's not the most important part of this movie. The acting was superb from all four leads, and the directing was nothing short of phenomenal. But, still, the story left something to be desired; perhaps some more character development, or more scenes of the 'perfect family' unraveling, was needed. Some of the scenes at the beginning were far too casual, so much so that they became unrealistic. In fact, I found the 'cheesy family' scenes at the beginning far more unbelievable than some of the graphic sex and violence. I suppose it makes a better contrast to the family by the end of the film, though. The sex scenes were completely necessary and I had no problem with them, but the son's subplot bothered me - though I could see it was also necessary. I felt it waded into cliche too much. Altogether, a technically sound film that could have used a bit more to it.

[align=center]A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

“Jesus Joey”

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Throughout the last forty years or so, Hollywood has been attempting to examine comic books. It has come only within the last few years however, that the “man behind the mask” has attempted to be closely examined. It is easy, though, to give the classic archetype of comic book vigilante a back story, usually one involving loss and pain (Spiderman, Superman, Batman). It is in the opinion of this critic that the examination of a truer-to-life person, such as Tom Hanks’s Michael O’Sullivan, also known as the Angel of Death. Director David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, however, may be the best take on a comic book character yet.

Violence stars Viggo Mortenson and Maria Bello as Tom and Edie Stall, a married couple living in Millbrook, Indiana, a town where nothing much ever happens. Cronenberg spends a good twenty minutes introducing the characters who live in this small, middle-of-nowhere town. What would usually be a straight introduction to the characters is actually the setup for the film’s central idea: how violence affects people.

In this opening Tom and Edie are seen running off to a motel for the night to engage in some kinky, teenage-style sex, while their son is being bullied at school. Everything changes one night, however, when two thugs try robbing the small restaurant that Tom owns. Forced into a corner, Tom kills the two men, and is injured in the process. The media and everyone in town declare Tom a hero.

The real mind games begin when three gangsters in black suits show up at Tom’s grill within the following days. Ed Harris plays the lead gangster Foggarty, and is chillingly at-home in his character’s shoes. Menacing, terrifying, and cunningly sly all at the same time, Foggarty walks into the restaurant and tells Tom, who he insists is actually an ex-gangster named Joey Cusack, to give it up, pack his bags, and come back to Philadelphia to the crime syndicate he used to be part of.

Cronengerg’s direction explodes at this point, and he lays on the paranoia thick. Maria Bello is terrific as a woman who initially doesn’t even think Foggarty could be telling the truth. As the evidence in favor of her husband being a mafioso piles on, however, she begins to break down. Mortenson, however, is the real star of this film. He takes a character who anyone could play at a nonchalant level and deconstructs him. Stall is a man who has been living a fake life existence for half his life, and he can’t seem to keep his mind entirely in the game anymore.

Cronenberg uses two sex scenes to let show how Tom and Edie have been affected by the violent acts that are dominating their lives. Before the violence there was love, and a cheerful, funny, and flirty love-making scene. When it seems that everything is mounting on them, all the emotions they have been suppressing explode onto the other in a violent sex scene.

Cronenberg’s aim for the film lies in the title: to examine how men with violent pasts act, and how violence is all too often used to settle disputes. It makes the viewer think about how they would react if such a traumatizing act as a man sticking a gun in their face, and where is the line of justification for violence marked?

[align=center]A[/align]