A History of Crap (the filmography of David Cronenberg)

A History of Violence Starring: Viggo Mortenson, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt Director: David Cronenberg Similar Films: Anything done by Hitchcock, The Zapruder Film Rating: ** Adventurous: !!! Although many of the reviews on this site can be considered half-baked, wishy-washy, or otherwise hyphenated, I don’t want to mince words here. Director David Cronenberg (Naked Lunch, eXistenZ) has shoveled up piece of first rate horse-sh** in his newest attempt at cheese, A History of Violence. Why or how anyone could leave the theater satisfied after sitting through an hour and a half of plodding dialogue, poor character development, unfulfilled suspense, and incomplete philosophies is beyond me. But I guess this film deserves as much chance as any other Palm D’Or nominee. Viggo Mortenson (Lord of the Rings, Hidalgo) stars as Tom Stall, a small town café owner with a wonderful, loving family (played by two useless brats and Maria Bello of ER semi-fame). Together, they live a perfectly halcyon life in the most boring town ever incorporated in America. When two violent drifters enter his eatery one evening, Tom must dispose of them. His heroics with a gun turn him into a national hero. Because of his new-found fame, Tom is visited by a mobster (Ed Harris) who claims to know him as “Crazy Joey from Philly.” As his wife and children are threatened by this shady character, Tom is forced to deal with his own violent past. There was so much potential here. Based on a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, A History of Violence finds its roots in strong visual images and weak dialogue. And the adaptation of those two points is where the film succeeds. The violent imagery that Cronenberg produces is strongly reminiscent of the final frames of the Zapruder film (especially the part where Kennedy's head went back and to the left, back and to the left). I had read that people were leaving the theater in disgust after seeing pieces of skull and brain on the tiled floor of Tom’s café. I merely laughed (hence the two-star rating). Beyond those few gory shots, however, there was little substance in the dialogue or character development available to the Cannes film festival panel that nominated this crap. I think the desire of an artist, like a scientist, is to not accept at face value what most people accept, but to dig deep underneath the surface of things to see where things originate and what goes on there. So that often leads you to scary, negative or forbidden stuff. But I don’t think the desire is only to know what’s negative, it’s to know what is real, and there are so many layers to reality. –David Cronenberg Although the trailer looked good, and the quote above makes it sound downright ineresting, the final cut of this film was hardly worth the money. One of the most underdeveloped areas of this movie is the philosophy behind it. The idea that violence begets violence is a theme that could mean so much to a frightened American population in the age of “Iraqi Freedom”. The whole thrust of the argument, if I understand it correctly, is that Tom was ushered into violence by his mobster family (which, coincidentally, was the defense used this week by John Gotti, Jr.). Because he committed atrocities earlier in his life, Tom must now pay the piper. In killing the two robbers, he has ushered his own son into violence. Unfortunately, it is hard to see the connection between Tom’s action, killing two unredeemable thugs, and his son’s subsequent pounding of a school bully. Moreover it is extremely difficult to believe that his son, who as far as I can tell smokes weed and has little coordination, could beat up the hulking mass of adolescence that he faces. In general, it is hard to make any connection between the family members. Their dialogue is so forced, that you can hardly believe they had spent two minutes together prior to the story. Here’s a snippet of dialogue (paraphrased as accurately as I can): Tom: When I get home, we’ll go make out at a drive-in. Edie: There hasn’t been a drive-in here since the 1970’s. That should be funny. Hell, it should at least get a chuckle…there’s so much you could do with those lines that would improve them. But instead the writer--Josh Olson converted the graphic novel to this drivel--and the director chose to shoot it in such a dry manner, that it’s impossible to laugh. This script should have been given to David Lynch. He would have known what to do with it. What the whole thing called for was cheese, CHEESE, and MORE CHEESE!

One can hardly blame Viggo Mortenson for the way A History of Violence turned out. Some of the lines could have been delivered in such a way that the audience was in on the joke. Instead, Cronenberg seemed to want the crowd to stretch for a laugh. Oh, how I long for the talking orifices of Naked Lunch. This film is not good at anything it attempts. It has little value as an allegory, and even less value as a piece of cinema (though granted the gore is good). I’m shocked that it was nominated for anything at all. Instead of wasting your hard earned money, save it for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which is only one month from release.