Possible spoilers herein! It won't matter, since you shouldn't see the movie anyway.
I've read most of the reviews and positive comments of this film, was intrigued by the premise, and was rather excited to see it the first night it opened here in Phoenix. The beginning was kind of slow, the middle was a little lagging, and the end was, well, slow. That's kind of the running theme for this film - extremely slow pacing, which is a bad thing, seeing as how the movie is a little over an hour and a half. According to the reviews, A History of Violence is a somehow satirical look at violence-obsessed media, but it falls prey to exactly the same sensibility it pretends to deplore, using violence to solve its plot holes and for little more than shock value. Extreme closeups of dying people's graphic injuries do little more than cause the audience to shift uncomfortably, and the two sex scenes elicited laughter from the packed house of thirty-somethings. The first one drags on too long, the second one doesn't make any sense.
Veering away from the violence and sex, the acting is downright lousy, from the mopey Viggo Mortensen to the horribly cast little blonde girl playing his daughter. Ed Harris is in the film entirely too briefly, and the usually great William Hurt is saddled with a ridiculous goatee and a goofy mobster accent. I can't recall a single scene of memorable dialogue, and the director seemed lost in a myriad of potential plots, abandoning each new moment of intrigue for more shots of broken bones, gunshot wounds, child abuse, and unnecessary sex.
When the credits finally began to roll after the six minutes of dead silence that constituted the film's ending and the lights came up, a huge collective sigh came from the audience and the theater was empty within about thirty seconds. If the point of the movie was to exploit violence for cheap gut-wrenching and to make people as uncomfortable as possible, David Cronenberg and crew succeeded admirably. If the point was to make a film that had something intelligent to say about American society, a plot, good acting, quality writing, and was overall worthwhile, they failed miserably. I don't want my money back; I want my memory erased.
I've read most of the reviews and positive comments of this film, was intrigued by the premise, and was rather excited to see it the first night it opened here in Phoenix. The beginning was kind of slow, the middle was a little lagging, and the end was, well, slow. That's kind of the running theme for this film - extremely slow pacing, which is a bad thing, seeing as how the movie is a little over an hour and a half. According to the reviews, A History of Violence is a somehow satirical look at violence-obsessed media, but it falls prey to exactly the same sensibility it pretends to deplore, using violence to solve its plot holes and for little more than shock value. Extreme closeups of dying people's graphic injuries do little more than cause the audience to shift uncomfortably, and the two sex scenes elicited laughter from the packed house of thirty-somethings. The first one drags on too long, the second one doesn't make any sense.
Veering away from the violence and sex, the acting is downright lousy, from the mopey Viggo Mortensen to the horribly cast little blonde girl playing his daughter. Ed Harris is in the film entirely too briefly, and the usually great William Hurt is saddled with a ridiculous goatee and a goofy mobster accent. I can't recall a single scene of memorable dialogue, and the director seemed lost in a myriad of potential plots, abandoning each new moment of intrigue for more shots of broken bones, gunshot wounds, child abuse, and unnecessary sex.
When the credits finally began to roll after the six minutes of dead silence that constituted the film's ending and the lights came up, a huge collective sigh came from the audience and the theater was empty within about thirty seconds. If the point of the movie was to exploit violence for cheap gut-wrenching and to make people as uncomfortable as possible, David Cronenberg and crew succeeded admirably. If the point was to make a film that had something intelligent to say about American society, a plot, good acting, quality writing, and was overall worthwhile, they failed miserably. I don't want my money back; I want my memory erased.