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Reviewed by Rich Brooks

“A History of Violenceâ€? is one of the better films I have seen recently. Directed by Canadian jew David Cronenberg, it professes to be a strong message against violence, yet I failed to view it as such. To me it was more of a film noir crime mystery which raised serious issues about personal identity and the ability to change. It used to be, when the country was much younger – at least according to the legends of Western mythology — that a man could move to a new location and literally put his past behind him. Starting a new life, however, is much more difficult in this age of Big Brother and computers and cameras watching and recording our every move. Even the FBI’s Witness Protection Program is no guarantee of anonymity. But can a leopard ever really completely change its spots? This movie doesn’t really answer that question, but it does a really good job of asking.

At the opening of this movie, mild-mannered Tom Stall is apparently a model citizen living an ideal life with an ideal marriage and two ideal children. As the proprietor of a diner in a small town in Indiana, he is well-liked and well-respected and he even has an adventuresome sex life with his wife. All this changes, however, with a string of events that follow an attempted robbery at his diner. Held at gunpoint by two would-be killers, Tom heroically resists and kills the two (White, naturally) lowlifes; he is rightfully considered a hero and his actions are given widespread publicity.

Unfortunately, this publicity draws the attention of a couple of mafia types, who pay Tom an unexpected visit while he’s at work. Veteran actor Ed Harris gives a great performance as the sinister Carl Fogarty, who has what he believes is some unfinished business with Tom, who he claims is really Philadelphia mobster “Joey Cusack.� At first Tom Stall denies any knowledge and insists it’s a case of mistaken identity, but the mobsters’ eerie persistence makes us begin to wonder. And was it just a lucky accident that this unarmed shopkeeper was able single-handedly to overpower two armed robbers?

There’s also a subplot in which Tom’s teenaged son is having trouble with some bullies at school. At first, the lad uses his wits and basically turns the other cheek when confronted with their taunting, but after his dad’s heroic actions, decides he’s not going to take it anymore and actually beats the shit out of the bullies. For this, he’s suspended from school and his dad is not at all pleased by his behavior, to me a surprising reaction. Most fathers would be proud of their sons standing up for themselves and whipping the school bully, but I guess this is Cronenberg’s pacifism expressing itself here.

There is now a problem with the Stalls’ once-perfect marriage, because Edie (Maria Bello) suddenly realizes that she no longer knows what kind of man she married. Can a once violent man really change completely and assume a totally new identity? And after Tom Stall’s problems are seemingly dispatched with, it seems he still has some of his own unfinished business to deal with. I’m not going to say any more about the plot, although I fear I may have already given too much of it away.

There is a lot of violence in this film, but the scenes are short and I don’t really see the almost cartoon-like quality of them making much of a case against violence. I did admire the nuanced acting of the relatively unknown Viggo Mortensen as Tom Stall. The part was rumored to have been offered to half-jew Harrison Ford. I’m glad he rejected it, because he’s one of my least favorite actors. The rest of the cast is uniformly good, especially the aforementioned Ed Harris and William Hurt, who plays a small but very key role in the unfolding drama. The directing and the pacing of the film is flawless, and I was especially moved by the final scene.

Oh, and one bonus. No niggers or jews or Mexicans in this movie … a real rarity nowadays.

RICH BROOKS