A History of Violence

A History of Violence
Directed by David Cronenberg
Starring Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, and Ed Harris
Rated R
Running Time: 96 minutes

As with any movie made with a modicum of intelligence, there is a plot to Cronenberg's "A History of Violence," and then there is its meaning, what the movie is about. The plot revolves around the lives of five people: All-American father and husband Tom Stall (Mortensen), his wife (Bello), mobster Carl Fogarty (Harris), and two apparent low-level mobsters on a cross-country journey. The film opens with an initial, horrifying act that sets our minds not only about the two killers, but also about the tone of the film, which lingers throughout every scene. From there, we meet Stall, who owns a diner in the middle of an affluent Indiana suburb. It's the typical townie diner, with glass-encased pies, white ceramic coffee mugs, and a bar where the regulars sit and shoot the bull.

It also closes early in the evening. On the opening night of the film, the two mobsters enter Stall's diner just as the staff is closing up shop. Tired from the road, and cold to begin with, they demand service, and after getting particularly nasty, they get Stall to relent and serve them. It's far from over, though, because the pair are killers, after all. They attack a waitress, and become more threatening by the second. Finally, Stall reacts, and his life changes. After he swiftly and professionally eliminates the mobster's threat, the local media takes notice of his story, and plays it up as a "real American hero" angle (WARNING: MEDIA AS ENEMY ALERT! MEDIA AS ENEMY ALERT!). Stall is a humble man, and doesn't like the attention. The rest of the movie shows us whether or not there may have been another reason he shied away.

Here is where Harris comes in. Playing an unbelievably un-Ed Harris character, though we see some echoes of Parcher from A Beautiful Mind early on, he is disturbing and magnetic as scarred, weathered Carl Fogarty (that's Fogarty
like a low-lying cloud, not Fogarty like the former lead singer of Creedence Clearwater Revival). He arrives, with lackeys in tow, because he swears that he recognizes Stall's face on the television reports as the face of disappeared mobster Joey Cusack. Despite Stall's denials, Fogarty stays on the trail, and begins to terrorize Stall and his family. Throughout, we are kept in plenty of suspense about whether or not Stall really is Joey Cusack, which is one of the best parts of the film.

Now, here's what the movie is about: What makes a good man good? Is it his devotion to his family, or to God, or to the community, or his work? Is it his honesty? His genuineness? How does that develop, and can it be rehabilitated, created, reformed? The audience's belief in that is the point upon which the film turns. Tom Stall has, from everything that we see, done everything right (more or less) in his life. He works hard, and honestly. He loves his wife and children. He respects others, treats them as human beings. So when Fogarty and his henchmen stroll into town, trying to paint Stall as a cold-hearted, evil man, we are faced with a choice as the audience and jury: is it possible that this straight-laced, hard-working man with a good family and a good life, is really all the creation of a criminal who needed to get away from trouble? If we can believe it, Stall is Joey Cusack. If we can't, Stall is still in a lot of trouble, made clear by Fogarty's threat. That it is such a hard decision to make is to the credit of Mortensen, who plays Stall perfectly, allowing no tip-off despite being a very inward, mysterious character.

Outside of Mortensen, there are some flaws, though I don't think they detract from the overall product too much. Maria Bello is poorly used as a wife who alternates between wet blanket and hyper-aggressive mama bear. There's no in between, and I feel like that's because of the writing, though I've never been a huge Bello fan. There are some leaps made in the plot, but I'm not sure they're actual faults, because I think Cronenberg (as in Se7en and his other works) wasn't as concerned with spinning a good yarn, as he was about putting something in front of the viewer to make him/her think and emote. The character of Jack Stall, Tom's son, is played well by Ashton Holmes (who decided to make "Ashton" a good baby's name in the mid-eighties? Seriously?), but his subplot is a little cliche. However, it does bring a little strength to the story, as we see Jack evolve from a whimpering, wise-cracking weakling into a vengeance-extracting wild card after his father's incident.

I love the poster for this movie, shown above, and one of my favorite things about the film is that its tone matches that picture - spare, with an intense focus on the inner workings of the characters. Mortensen is again a big part of this, and we're hooked as much by what he doesn't say and do as what he does. This is a true masterwork for him, though I'm not sure it's not overshadowed by some of the film's drawbacks.

Three stars.