A History of Violence (2005)

Absolutely Fantastic

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Great screenplay, great acting, and i liked a lot the characters. Ed Harris was amazing.

You just can't escape the violence can you? It justifies the "violence" in it's name more than enough! Shows that Cronenberg can do excellent comic book adaptations as well as creepy sci-fi.

They rarely make movies like this any more. Only eleven years have gone since the premier of this film – and now you have to move over to TV to see anything like this. Seeing it for the third time tonight, I was vaguely reminded of the first season of True Detective and on second thought, the American Friend by the German Wim Wenders. The History of Violence could almost have been made in France or Germany. I've never been a fan of David Cronenberg. I think he's been showy and too shocking on purpose, not unlike another David – Lynch. I deeply disliked Twin Peaks, for instance – a pretentious, self-mystifying piece of crap. Here DC is on a good track. Even the music is great. It's fascinating to read the divided comments on this film. I like it because it's really very cinematic and thoughtful. Violence in it is obligatory – like in a Greek drama. I only give it an eight because the ending is prolonged and somehow contrived. Viggo and Wifey are great and the Sheriff very believable. The ending loses something of the spirit of this relative masterpiece.

Despite sitting through this film to its conclusion I have to say it is currently overrated on IMDb and while I didn't quite hate the film I didn't quite like it enough to rate it much higher than I have. I found some of the scripting to be quite cringe worthy and unrealistic and some of the early scenes were quite poorly acted out especially in relation to those stories that relating to the family and children. On the plus side in the action/violent scenes and the development of the main character,who was acted more bearably than other characters throughout, was interesting. The one plus in terms of the story and style of presentation in violent/ tense scenes was that there were some minor reflections of the movie and TV series Fargo which kept me just about interested enough to stay watching to the end.