This movie lends itself to two instructive comparisons: the work of David Lynch and Sam Peckinpah.
Lynch is all over the first part of the movie, where the tone is a forced and unnaturally sticky sweet happy one. From Howard Shore's patronizingly cute scoring to the Leave It To Beaver sculpted family life, you just know the director is exaggerating the too-perfect image of family life so he can make something really, really awful happen to them later. Directors like Lynch love to give full vent to the fury of their twisted and repressed middle class ethos; he wants to take it out on the audience because he hated his mother for being in the PTA. I was expecting Viggo's whole family to get axed to death or something, but Cronenberg's too sharp to be a carbon copy.
So of course he switches gears about midway through and plummets us into the violence soaked world of Sam Peckinpah. Peckinpah never had the same taste for the carefully manicured and disturbing psychological tension of Lynch; he was just an alcoholic who loved his motherfucking violence. The sex scene on the stairs is practically plagiarized straight from Straw Dogs. Is it rape? Rough sex? Do all women just secretly love buggery? Either way, I enjoyed the violence, although the subplot about the kid and the bully was pretty dumb.
The movie gets off track after the big reveal midway through and becomes a little silly. Now, I love the unstoppable killer archetype in film; I think it's one of cinema's greatest gifts. Who doesn't like seeing a badass kill the shit out of everyone? But, if your movie purports to be anything other than an excuse for a cool looking dude to kill people, it's going to take a lot of skill to integrate the stone killer archetype into the storyline without completely losing the plot and the substance of your film. I don't think this movie integrates it that well, but I give them kudos for trying.
William Hurt is underwhelming in his cameo. You might even say, he is bad.
Viggo is great. The stare he levels on his son after the kid explodes Ed Harris' chest with a shotgun blast is the best shot in the film.