Intruiging premise. graphic to a fault

The plot of "A History of Violence" was interesting enough. The characters were plausable and you enjoyed getting to know the situations and lives of these people.

But unless you are ready for explicit gore and unhidden violence, you will likely not be prepared for what you get with this movie. The previews and advertisements give you a hint of a hidden life and a forboding past that may be catching up with the main character. But you don't really expect that you will see that violence flying in your face, blood spurting on your shoes and gruesome portions of victim's mouths hanging ragged from their faces as they gurgle their last heaves of breath.

The interplay between a man and his wife that moves from fairytale to abuse-tainted inter-connectedness is a thoughtful conflict. Its an interesting moral tale, but ultimately more fantasy than harsh reality, leaving the viewer feeling abused. Perhaps, this was the intent of the directors David Cronenberg & Josh Olsen whose talents have been used on much less loftier pursuits in movies like Jason X, Existenz, Scanners, the Fly, and a list of B-movie animal/infestation fright films. In any case, the numbing changes in the characters seem less than realistic, though still interesting. It seemed to me that here Josh Olsen (director and screenwiter) bit off more than we could chew with the staircase scene. Not because of the sex or violence, but because they are trying to give a mom and wife a third persona to match her husbands recently discovered violence ridden history. I suppose this is to try to reveal some codependent empathy between them. It just doesn't seem to work much more than shock effect.

The movie doesn't leave you with any mystery, even though it thinks it does. It's like the directors thought they accomplished something that all of us in the theatre thought they had failed at. A remake of this would be in order. They hit some points well, craft Vigo Mortensen as Tom Stall and develop the character well. Again some of the family conflict works, but about half way into the film it all unravels and you are left wondering why someone didn't hire an editor to critique this story.

Worthwhile seeing on DVD, but way, way too graphic for anyone under 17, or possibly even 21. No woman will handle seeing this gore, and likely only people who enjoy extreme gore violence will even be ready for the scenes (though brief) of splattering, gurgling violence. Thankfully those scenes are brief.

Mortensen does fairly well in this picture, and Belo is clearly an emotionally engaging actress. Harris' character is thoughtless and is forced to handling unbelievable script and dialog (the mall scene is just plain stupid). William Hurt's brief appearance is so silly it is somewhat comical, though he is meant to be a menacing and powerfully thoughtless killer.

All the possibilities where there for a good film, but the screenwriting and directing tank this promising concept to a C movie that is just reasonable for DVD rental.