A History of Violence

Ed Harris (left) accuses Viggo Mortensen of a secret past.

(Herald rating: * * * * )

David Cronenberg films have always been more than a little unsettling. Usually it's the combo of art, science, sex, violence and viscera that does it.

What's so disconcerting about A History of Violence is its fierce restraint, by Cronenberg's standards. Yes this taut film has some infrequent violent episodes to leave you breathless and a sex scene which may well prime a post-screening debate about its execution or meaning.

But for the most part, the power of A History of Violence is in the dark chilling tension and normality with which Cronenberg coats the opening acts.

Loosely based on a graphic novel of the same name, but a long way from Sin City, it's set in peaceful Everytown, USA - one that could exist only in the movies, and which is about to find out what violence's viral effects really are.

Mortensen, a long way from Middle Earth but showing the sort of chops he displayed in smaller films before his star rose as Aragorn, plays Tom Stall, a guy who divides his time between his diner and his happy family life with lawyer wife Edie (Bello) and two kids.

One night Tom spectacularly thwarts a robbery attempt at the diner and the Stalls' life is upended - first by the media attention branding him a hero, then by the appearance of big city mobster Fogarty (Harris), who arrives to claim Stall isn't the mild-mannered Midwesterner he appears to be but a hood from back east named Joey Cusack who left Fogarty short of an eyeball.

Why Fogarty and his henchmen don't get their revenge immediately has to do with Stall's denial and some business back in the big city the crooks sprang from. That leads to scenes involving William Hurt, Oscar-nominated for supporting actor for his brief but menacing appearance as the gang's kingpin.

But what happens before we get to meet him is a surprise worth savouring and keeping to yourself.

It's a movie which manages to use its whiplash depictions of violence to say something about our appreciation of it as entertainment while we abhor the real thing.

It's a cracker thriller, too, one that confounds expectations.

The Cronenberg faithful will be satisfyingly unsettled by his efforts here. The movie title might headline the director's own past, but here he's anything but just up to his old tricks.

CAST: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt
DIRECTOR: David Cronenberg
RATING: R18 (graphic violence, sex scenes)
RUNNING TIME: 96 mins
SCREENING: Rialto