A History Of Violence

David Cronenberg's film opens with two unnamed crooks (McHattie, Bryk) losing themselves in anonymous Midwestern America. They're broke, bored and murderous, casually killing the family that runs a motel where they stay. Cut to family man Tom Stall (Mortensen) telling his young daughter (Hayes), "There's no such thing as monsters." It's clearly untrue, and the rest of Cronenberg's film is spent investigating the lurking monster in humanity. Or to put it in more 'Cronenbergian' terms - if someone is infected with violence, can they ever be cured?

Tom runs a diner in a pleasant small town in Indiana. It's the sort of town where people greet each other on the street, where everyone goes to church, where, according to the local sheriff (MacNeil), "we look out for our own". It's the sort of town we've seen a thousand times onscreen, notably in old Capra flicks, and handled by more leftfield American filmmakers in contemporary fiction like A Simple Plan, The Man Who Wasn't There, even 'Twin Peaks'. It's a mythic place where stories can be full of surprises.

The two criminal drifters arrive in town and proceed to threaten people in the diner, at which point Tom leaps over the counter and efficiently deals with the pair - that is, he kills them. He's labelled an "American hero," with locals yelling "Way to go Tom!" However, he doesn't want the attention, or the media frenzy; he's a quiet man who simply says, "I just got lucky. Very lucky." But did he?

The diner is later visited by Carl Fogarty (Harris) who calls Tom "Joey," and insists, despite Tom's protestations, "Your name is Joey Cusack. You're from Philly". The local Sheriff (MacNeil) investigates Fogarty and his stooges, informing Tom and his loving wife Edie (Bello), they're "organised crime from the east coast. The real thing. The bad men." It seems ludicrous, but despite being a scary bastard, Fogarty is persuasive - "Ask him, Edie, how come he's so good at killing people?" The seeds of suspicion are sown and despite the apparent solidity of their family life, and she starts to wonder.

Although A History Of Violence omits the fantasy horror of most of Cronenberg's films, it revisits one of the director's recurring themes - the multiple levels of reality, explored in his cyber thriller eXistenZ. Here, the realities build up around Tom: is he really just the small-town boy he claims, or is he something else, a mobster, a monster as horrifying as the men he killed in the diner? Cronenberg and Mortensen keep you guessing for half the film.

Mortensen is pitch-perfect as Tom. Less convincing is William Hurt, introduced as the film ranges beyond the small town to take in a wider cast of mobsters. The east coast gangster shtick becomes clichéd, so much so that when Hurt is doing his bit you recall Peter Sellers packing his cheeks with cotton wool - Inspector Clouseau playing Godfather.

There are no easy answers in A History Of Violence, which plays out as an entertaining, refined thriller with psychological undercurrents. It includes a complex evaluation of violence - of how it saved Tom and changes the status of his put-upon son Jack (Holmes) in the high school hierarchy. The film questions the virtues of talk (or negotiation) versus fighting, a familiar conundrum in a world where America is regularly deploying troops to get its way. Fortunately, the filmmakers avoid attributing a true, clear virtue to acts of violence.

In one key scene, Jack rounds on his bullies at school. At home, Tom tells him off: "In this family we do not solve our problems by hitting people." To which Jack replies, "No, in this family, we shoot them." It earns him a meaty slap from his father. There's no easy answer here: certainly Tom's violence saved innocent bystanders and Jack is finally able to transcend his whipping boy status. But how do their violent acts affect them personally? Are they free? Fulfilled? Doubtful. What's certain is that violence is a taint.

Cronenberg may be presenting the film as a thriller, but he shoots in an austere way. He doesn't look away when the violence occurs, therefore denying its brutality or messy aftermath. It's not presented as excitement either, as in more typical Hollywood thrillers, although it does invigorate the plot. Above all, it is grotesque and visceral. There is occasional body horror (brief close-ups of shattered features, a graze or bruise on Edie's back that's briefly stroked by the camera) but it's far from conceptual. It is simply blunt about the grimness of violence.