A History of Violence

A History of Violence opens with a grisly off-screen bloodbath, which hints at what is to come. Tom Stall (Mortensen) is a family guy in a small town who becomes an everyman hero after he stops a potentially gruesome robbery in his diner. Celebrated for his actions, Stall and his family find their lives irreversibly intruded upon, first by the media and secondly by some Philadelphia gangsters who turn up claiming that Tom is none other than their old associate Joey Cusack.

The revenge flick isn't alien to modern audiences, and it remains an interesting premise - especially at the hands of Cronenberg, a master of identity-conundrums. Each scene is laden with consequential detail, building up character profiles without cluttering the story with unnecessary dialogue. It is a film in which suggestion is strong, and the suspense levels are almost Hitchcockian, while the movie remains more mainstream and accessible than Cronenberg's usual outings. Ultimately a film about all the big issues - violence, evolution, illusion of civilization, sex, death, our animalistic natures - and what they all contribute to our sense of identity; Cronenberg has done it again.