“A History of Violence”

Directed by:

David Cronenberg

Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris and William Hurt

MPRA rating: R (for strong violence, adult language and nudity, mild drug use)

Running time: 124 minutes

Best suited for: the rugged, no-nonsense thriller seeker

Least suited for: the faint of heart, the squeamish Acorn’s Rating Guide:

There’s an appropriate phrase best used to describe director David Cronenberg’s deliciously edgy thriller “A History of Violence.” Slow burn. It pretty much sums up both the character of Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) and the film’s straightforward and occasionally brutal, no-nonsense plot.

Tom is a rare man: he’s deeply in love with his wife, at ease with his two kids and wanting for nothing. He spends his days in unassuming bliss, and his wife, Edie (Maria Bello) appears just as much at ease, equally in love. (Had she been pregnant—even if I were completely unaware of the plot line—I’d have immediately feared for her longevity.) Edie’s a smalltown attorney and Tom runs the local diner, where he knows just about everyone by name. This is strictly Norman Rockwell territory and Tom is the perfect poster boy.

But Tom’s bliss is shattered when two killers, passing through town, attempt to rob his diner. With an almost eerie calm, Tom foils the robbery and kills both men. Despite his objections and his “awshucks” demeanor, Tom becomes a local hero. When TV cameras plaster his face across the country, trouble isn’t far behind.

Tom’s troubles arrive in a black Cadillac, in the form of a disfigured man named Fogarty, who calls Tom “Joey” and tells him they have unfinished business. Tom professes never to have met Fogarty, but we slowly come to believe there’s something that Tom might be hiding.

To his wife and family, the sudden intrusion is innocence lost. Edie wonders if she even knows the man she’s loved for nearly 20 years—although, frankly, I wished she’d have given the guy some benefit of the doubt. Good men, I’ve been told, are somewhat hard to find. And even his teenage son grows distrustful of the man who’s rarely uttered a harsh word.

“A History of Violence” strikes me as a typically American film, roiling in its dusty backdrop of Any Town, U.S.A. Director Cronenberg doesn’t stretch Tom too far from his comic-book incarnation (the film’s based on a graphic novel) of defining good and bad, right and wrong, justice and injustice. He’s a man weaned on only two speeds, peaceful and downright maniacal.

It’s been said in certain circles that “History” is a metaphor for society’s ills, that the character Fogarty represents 9/11 and that Richie (played by William Hurt, at his creepiest) is Iraq. And that the soft-spoken Tom resorts to senseless violence only when provoked. But “History” isn’t the parody that “Natural Born Killers” clearly was to some folks, nor is there any reason to think that Cronenberg dug any deeper than the story’s original pulp roots. Sometimes a movie is just a movie, and that’s okay too.

I remember a question asked once in a magazine, by a reader wondering if cats were particularly smart. The answer? Yes, cat’s are very smart—at being cats. Well, is “A History of Violence” a good movie? Yes, it is. It’s good at what it sets out to portray. Sure there’s a formula at play here, but it nicely hides beneath the taut and well-paced action, beneath the alternately compassionate and brutally rugged brow of Mr. Mortensen and the smalltown sensuality of Maria Bello (who earned her chops, in my book, with William H. Macy in the masterly “The Cooler”). Their on-screen chemistry works here. Watching “History’s” slow boil come to full steam, I was reminded of some reluctant heroes in distinctly noiresque classics— Sterling Hayden pitted against Sinatra in “Suddenly,” Bogart matching wits with Edward G. Robinson in “Key Largo.” Sure, even though you think you know how it’ll eventually wash, you still can’t keep yourself from nibbling on a fingernail or two. In that regard, “A History of Violence” probably won’t disappoint.