Movie: A History of Violence (2005) ***

It's been a while since I've watched A History of Violence and I have to say, I have discovered some flaws that I was able to overlook when I first saw it. There are spoilers from here on.

Let me first revisit what I thought and continue to think makes this movie good: The fight scenes are great: Well choreographed to give you a sense of how crazy or well-trained Viggo Mortensen's character, Tom/Joey, was.

Then the scene where Tom finally gives in to Joey is a testament to Mortensen's acting skills. Some people don't see Joey until Tom says “I should've killed you back in Philly,” but, if you pay attention, during the driveway standoff, Tom's innocent-family-man's face changes to a knowing smirk. It's a Bruce-Lee-like transformation, and it is masterfully done. The contrast in those two characters played by the same actor, the movie's screeching-turn transition makes this movie intriguing, although there are some annoying elements.

The little girl is a space cadet. That scene between her mom and Fogarty in the mall? I've been in a similar situation when I was little and I was scared beyond belief that my mom was squaring up against a scary man. Space Girl hops on a nearby kiddie ride completely oblivious of the danger she could potentially face. That was annoying.

Next, the teenage son who blows up after the last straw of being bullied by an alpha-male jock character and finding out his dad is a killing machine. Before that scene he was silly teenager, taking bullying like a pro, hanging out with the questionable girl in school, and being cynical about the world with no real reason. This line came out of no where: “Eventually, we uh, grow up, we get jobs, we have affairs and become alcoholics.” What a nice and perfect life he had lived up until finding out about his dad. That odd line wasn't even an ironic.

Bad writing or poor time management led to the worst scene of the movie: The conversation between Joey and, his brother, Richie in the Philadelphia mansion. They had plenty of time to do some kind of montage or voiceover to recount for the audience who Joey was and the things he had done, but instead they did one of those catch-the-audience-up conversations that usually work best on television shows, but was placed in this otherwise pretty good movie.

A discussion with my BFF turned up another idea: Tom and Edie Stall raised their annoying children in a safe-and-rosy-environment, not preparing them for a bigger world where violence lives and can stop into their diner, home or school at any time. So that's another thing, about this movie: The rude awakening every member of the Stall family gets when Tom's history of violence becomes apparent. Hooray! I got to use the title in my review!

I'm giving this movie 3 stars *** because I like it, and it is one of the movies that I will watch over and over again.

I own this DVD.