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  • Film & TV Moderators: ghostfreak

Film: A History of Violence

Rate this film

  • [img]http://i.bluelight.ru/g//543/1star.gif[/img]

    Votes: 3 6.3%
  • [img]http://i.bluelight.ru/g//543/2stars.gif[/img]

    Votes: 10 20.8%
  • [img]http://i.bluelight.ru/g//543/3stars.gif[/img]

    Votes: 17 35.4%
  • [img]http://i.bluelight.ru/g//543/4stars.gif[/img]

    Votes: 18 37.5%

  • Total voters
    48
^ wow, I never thought of that scene like that Banquo. it actually makes sense. now, the fight/sex scene later in the movie deserves a second glance. personally, I am happy to hear of more meaning applied to the sex scenes in this movie - because I commented with the people who were watching it with me that these had to be the WORST sex scenes I have ever seen in a movie.
 
I loved it! very soft, not revealing too much in the beginning. I have already watched it 3 times, this one is on my list to purchase. Also I might add has anyone ever seen Gangster Number 1, if not I suggest you guys check it out
 
never before have i had such a reaction to a film. There was something about its strange pace and style, something about the strange behaviour of the characters, something subtle... You know how some films have some really subtle aspects that make it a really great film, well, this for me was the complete opposite, it made me feel really crazy and unnerved, quite distressed, to the point where i had to escape from the cinema... Did anyone else have a similar reaction? Anyway i can probably attribute some of this reaction to the fact that i saw it in italian rather than its original language...
 
Ed harris did an amazing job, and i loved the way that it was shot. Im not a huge cronenberg fan really, i did like a few of his films that i have seen, but this one seems to be right on the money. i love the way that the violence was done, bloody but not gory, almost comic booky.

it is a very unconventional movie, as far as story structure and all that goes, and i can see why many people didnt like it.
 
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Ya, Ed Harris was great, I didn't even recognize him at first.
The movie gave what would be expected of Cronenberg; strange, a little gross. A good movie but probably not cronenberg's strongest.
 
while i enjoyed this movie, i wouldn't begin to call it the best of the year, at all....i loved the pseudo surprising twists, i loved the acting, i loved the ending, but it seemed to lack something...and i can't put my finger on it.
 
good movie,
nice shocking violence and raunchy sex for a mainstream release.
great buildup - but i think that it lost the momentum towards the end.

i found the family relationship became unbelieveable towards the end.
after the show-down at the house and when he returned to his family at the dinner table they were basicly mute, which was totally unbelieveable. I think this scenario which twisted you family life upside down would have you asking a tonne of questions so you could try to get a graps on your husband/dads secret past....

Spider is still a way better movie though.
 
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I think the ending went well. They were still in shock about their father/husband and didn't know what to say, yet they were still accepting of him comming back.
 
Caught this last night on HBO after never having seen it before. I am kind of surprised to see a lot of folks didn't care for it. I thought it was well-done, the pacing; the juxtaposition of the saccharine-sweet life of Tom Stall next to the Joey Cusack's cold, violent existence; his own son, raised in a non-violent household, is quick to inherit his father's buried violent tendencies and follow his example. Hell, I even thought the sex scenes were great, and certainly much more graphic than I was expecting. I think banquo makes a good point about the cheerleader scene, with his wife pretending to be someone from a past life almost.

Three stars.
 
Three stars--it was good, but not great.

What I liked:
--Solid performances all around.
--Nicely developed tension.
--The violent psychosexual undercurrent, a Cronenberg staple.
--Maria Bello.

What I disliked:
--William Hurt's accent.
--Without giving away spoilers, the ending annoyed the hell out of me; I expected better. Perhaps it was a fault of the source material, perhaps not.
 
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.
 
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