A History of Violence

The less you know about this movie before seeing it -- and you really should see it -- the better.

Cronenberg's direction, mirroring the split in Tom, is alternately measured and frighteningly explosive, and, as always, he gives the movie a nasty underlay of sexual perversity.

This peculiarly predictable picture has been calculated, or miscalculated, to set up certain expectations, fulfill them, and then do the same thing again, thereby giving us a chance to see what's coming and, at least in theory, be shocked.

The violence that enters the characters' perfect domestic existence is permanent, and each act reveals truths about the people who use it and the audience who enjoys it.

Cronenberg's masterful, intelligent and gripping meta-thriller leaves us pondering about our enduringly perverse desire for alternative realities, in which surrogate violent alter egos run righteously and preposterously amok.

A remarkably convincing examination of heroism, hero worship, and the seductive allure of villainy.

All-time performances by Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello, a stacked supporting cast, and gorgeous cinematography. This is Cronenberg's contemporary masterpiece.

Cronenberg brilliantly elicits a continuum of emotions, elicits our involvement as well as our reflection. This is an astonishing feat made all the more effective by a complex and subtle performance by Vigo Mortensen...

In much the same manner that David Lynch deconstructed the myth of the squeaky-clean small Southern town in Blue Velvet, so too does David Cronenberg take a hatchet to the facade of bland Midwestern homeliness in A History of Violence.

A History of Violence is one of the key films of the first decade of the 21st century.