Friday
Sept 23, 2005
SGN.org
Volume 33
Issue 38
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Monday, Dec 01, 2008
06:16
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| NOTE** finding non clickable links? Sorry these columns are not featured in this weeks edition - |
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Cronenberg's A History of Violence falls flat |
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| Cronenberg's A History of Violence falls flat | ||
| By Derich Mantonela
- SGN A&E Writer
David Cronenberg's cult "auteur" status has always puzzled me somewhat. He's a very good cranker-outer of middling B-movie horror (or psychological horror) fare, working the Hitchcockian angles fairly well, but beyond that? His latest, A History Of Violence, seems to me to be a step not so much up as sideways, given its no-depth characterizations, plodding plot progression, and puzzlingly conventional one-idea premise, no wonder given that Josh Olson's script is based on a "graphic novel" (comic book) by John Wagner and Vince Locke (shades of 2002's vastly over-rated, and very similar, Tom Hanks potboiler, The Road To Perdition). Viggo Mortensen, a sort of boyishly devilish, sympathetic cross between Kirk Douglas (same chin dimple) and Jack Wrangler (porn star with an Eisenhower-era look) in their youthful heydays, is a stock character here and there's little he can do about it. He plays an everyday, salt of the earth, regular family guy in an Indiana podunk whose hidden past as a hit man comes to the fore when he is forced to kill some bad guys who threaten the tranquility of his new life. Ed Harris and William Hurt do "big star" cameo turns as heavies; Harris seems mostly bemused by his part but Hurt hams it up big time. Anyway, they both get blown away by our "Reluctant Hero," who, once he morphs back into the spirit of his killing days seems about as shy as Dirty Harry. Threaten me or my family? BLAM! Take that! Killing them in bunches, as Cronenberg's unsubtle camera zooms in for the resultant gore. Did I say "unsubtle"? Everyone in this film is some sort of stock character out of a, well, out of a comic book, including the usual supporting characters - Maria Bello as the shocked, disillusioned wife, Ashton Holmes as the shocked, disillusioned son, etc. They don't seem to get it that they're living in Zombieville and that dear old Dad blowing away a few bad guys at least breaks up the monotony of their quiet, boring desperation. Alas, A History Of Violence fails to break up our own monotony, those of us sitting in its audience waiting for something fresh or original to enlighten or to amuse us. |
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