An interesting premise and surprising storyline is nearly ruined by a bad script evoking bad acting and bad direction. "A History of Violence" sure has many surprises in its story for the uninitiated viewer. There are compelling twists and turns here. In many ways, when it comes to story, this just might be the most original story told in cinema this year. But the script by Josh Olson has so much unlikely and contrived dialogue that it ultimately falls the piece. Perhaps too this is because the film is based on the most brief of source material, a graphic novel.

There's a mystery in "A History of Violence" that is exposed in the film's trailer when lead Viggo Mortensen, playing a diner owner named Tom Stall, kills two men trying to rob his little local restaurant. Ed Harris, a "Man in Black" with a damaged eye, arrives on the scene and begins to call Tom by the name Joey and we begin to wonder if Mortensen's character has a hidden past.

To give away more of the plot would spoil the surprises left in the film's story. To be sure, many of these twists and turns are quite awesome but, again, the tension and intrigue within them are usually deflated by Olson's slapdash and often silly dialogue. This film could really have some interesting ideas circulating around within the story, particularly with Tom's wife (Maria Bello) and son (hottie Ashton Holmes) but these threads are handled so poorly by the script that we simply lose any feelings of credibility the cast has managed to create. Bello must endure the most ludicrous of sex scenes and Holmes has the most inane of dialogue to spew and the film utterly falls apart in these moments. To be sure, William Hurt's turn in the film's final reel is so over the top because the script has left him no other place to go. And here, finally, the film is left in nothing but tatters.

David Cronenberg is an interesting director but he allows this film to go far beyond the realms of feasibility, leaving "A History of Violence" with that most sad of conclusions, the idea in the viewer's mind of what the film could have been but never was.

Notes:

Cronenberg was nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes when the premiered in 2005.

Filmed in Canada, the town in Indiana where the film is set, Millbrook, is actually the name of the town in Ontario where the film was lensed.

Directors John Carpenter and George A. Romero have tiny cameos.

Viewed in Austin in October 2005.

Report Card

Script: B-

Acting: B+

Cinematography\Lighting: B-

Special Effects\Make Up: B-

Music: C

Final Grade: B-