Product Details

• Actors: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, William Hurt, Ed Harris
• Directors: David Cronenberg
• Format: Blu-ray, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: Region A/1 (Read more about DVD/Blu-ray formats.)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: New Line Home Video
• DVD Release Date: February 10, 2009
• Run Time: 96 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (491 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001JNNE1O
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,100 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "A History of Violence [Blu-ray]" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

On the surface, David Cronenberg may seem an unlikely candidate to direct A History of Violence, but dig deeper and you'll see that he's the right man for the job. As an intellectual seeker of meaning and an avowed believer in Darwinian survival of the fittest, Cronenberg knows that the story of mild-mannered small-town diner proprietor Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) is in fact a multilayered examination of inbred human behavior, beginning when Tom's skillful killing of two would-be robbers draws unwanted attention to his idyllic family life in rural Indiana. He's got a loving wife (Maria Bello) and young daughter (Heidi Hayes) who are about to learn things about Tom they hadn't suspected, and a teenage son (Ashton Holmes) who has inherited his father's most prominent survival trait, manifesting itself in ways he never expected. By the time Tom has come into contact with a scarred villain (Ed Harris) and connections that lead him to a half-crazy kingpin (William Hurt, in a spectacular cameo), Cronenberg has plumbed the dark depths of human nature so skillfully that A History of Violence stands well above the graphic novel that inspired it (indeed, Cronenberg was unaware of the source material behind Josh Olson's chilling adaptation). With hard-hitting violence that's as sudden as it is graphically authentic, this is A History of Violence that's worthy of serious study and widespread acclaim. --Jeff Shannon

Product Description

An average family is thrust into the spotlight after the father (Viggo Mortensen) commits a seemingly self-defense murder at his diner.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars We never truly know people April 3, 2008

By Chad A. B. Wilson

Format:DVD

So much has been written about this film and the title. For most, the movie is about the way violence is encoded in our lives and how we all have an underlying current running through us. I think the movie is really the study of the relationship between the two main characters--Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) and Edie (Maria Bello).

These two actors are amazing the film, especially Bello, who deserves to become a household name. Their intereactions are always spot on as they drive the plot. The sideways glance, the tense look, the loving smile: every part means something.

These two characters are madly in love after seventeen or such years of marriage, and we see it through different ways. The first half of the movie is there to set up their relationship and the love they feel. But then everything is turned upside down, and we realize that these two people who have shared everything and love one another dearly really know nothing about what lies beneath. It's as if they have only shared a part of themselves.

It's this interaction and realization that makes the film so great. The plot almost seems beside the point; it's merely there to make use see the characters.

I give the film four stars instead of five because of some of the scenes were out of place, almost as if Cronenberg couldn't decide what kind of film to make. William Hurt is good at the end, for instance, but his character didn't fit. Watch the movie for the main characters' interactions and go along with the rest.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Bloodlust as part of the human condition November 3, 2005

By Joseph Haschka TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Not since STRAW DOGS (1971) have I seen a film that so strikingly makes the point that the capacity for violence is an inseparable part of the human condition. Even the meek inheriting the Earth have it - if pushed far enough.

Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) and wife Edie (Maria Bello) live in a small mid-western town with teenage son Jack (Ashton Holmes) and young daughter Sarah (Heidi Hayes). The couple own, and Tom manages, a diner on Main Street. One night at closing, two psychopathic killers enter the eatery to rob the place and have some bloody fun. (We know they're psychopaths because the film's opening sequence shows them brutally murdering a family that owns a roadside motel.) As his waitress is about to be raped, Tom reacts in a way that would make Dirty Harry proud. The killers are rendered dead in pools of blood, coffee, and broken glass, and Tom, with his foot impaled by a knife, becomes a local hero that makes the national TV news. However, this notoriety draws out of the woodwork a scarred, Mafia hit man from Philadelphia, Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), and a pair of associate thugs. Carl insists to Tom and Edie that the former is really Joey Cusack, a big city killer that tried to take out Carl's left eye with barbed wire. Tom, of course, denies that he's ever been to Philly. Edie believes her husband. At least she does until witnessing his reaction when Fogarty et al confront Tom on their front lawn after they kidnap Jack. Maybe Hubby has secrets, you think?

At first, the audience believes that son Jack is a spineless wimp - until he's pushed too far in the hallway of his high school by a bully that's been tormenting him. (Is there an inheritable gene for mayhem, you might ask.) From all of us who've had sand kicked in our faces, way to go, kid!... Even Edie isn't as turned off by violence as much as the thought that Tom has been lying to her all their married life. Indeed, an angry confrontation between the two escalates to a bout of consensual, frenzied sex that, while perhaps not "rough", was certainly uncomfortable and left bruises. (Is sex but low-level violence much as James Coburn's character in the 1967 comedy western WATERHOLE #3 called sex "assault with a friendly weapon"?)

Despite Tom's evident past, he's now a loving, committed father and husband and a solid, law abiding member of the community. OK, so he has a few lapses into old habits; they're all for good causes. As the very last scene infers, perhaps Edie can live with it. After all, she and her Hearth and Home are more stoutly defended by Tom's darker side than by some pacifist that wouldn't act until it's too late; other tribes should be so lucky.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE is a gritty, well-acted, visual essay that neither condones nor condemns the potential for violence that exists in all of us. It's just there waiting in the tall grass to be called forth as needed, and there's no anguished, PC-inspired, hand-wringing about that fact. It's not the greatest film of 2005, but I liked it very much. Read more ›

168 of 228 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Cronenberg at his masterful best December 25, 2005

By A. Sandoc VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

What can I say about David Cronenberg's latest work that hasn't already been said by film critics everywhere? My answer to that has to be: not much. A History of Violence will remind people that David Cronenberg is one of the more underappreciated film directors of the last 30 years and also one of its master craftsmen. Using a loose-adaptation (yet echoing some of the book's themes) of the John Wagner and Vince Locke graphic novel of the same name, Cronenberg creates a multi-layered film dissertation about the nature of violence. I will pause for a moment and say that the film also delivers as a taut, gripping, thriller that looks to ape the action-films of blockbusters past, but Cronenberg's skill as a director manages to keep the film above it's B-movie aspirations.

More well-known as the creator of eccentric and unusual fare with legions of fans and admirers in the horror community, David Cronenberg may have his most mainstream and accessible film to date since his remake of The Fly. In A History of Violence Cronenberg's existentialism continues to show as he probes through the dark and shadowy corners of human behavior and instinct. He posits a question of whether people as a whole --- no matter how saintly, well-balanced, and civilized --- secretly revels in the violence they see around them even as they denounce and feel uncomfortable around it. Some have seen this film as something of a historical commentary of the American history and how the nation itself has been shaped by its acceptance of violence and its many repercussions. I would say that those people are not far off the mark, but to compartmentalize Cronenberg's film to such a narrow focus is not fair to the film.... Cronenberg deftly shows the brutality of violence and how its effect can be far-reaching and intimite at the same time.

As his past films dealt with the horror of the body politic (Shivers, Crash, The Brood, The Fly) and the nature of reality and existence (Videodrome, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Spider, eXistenZ) Cronenberg continues these themes with this film. Despite the gore and viscera being small in comparison to his past works, History still show the carnage and horror that violent acts can perform on the frail human body. The film also points out that people as a whole deceive themselves of the true world around them in order to hold onto the ideal and the quaint. This is really put forward by the dynamic interaction between the character of Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) and his wife Edie (Maria Bello) from beginning to end. It is a testament to the excellent performances by both these actors that the audience truly believe and care for their characters on-screen. I'll have to say that this is Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello's best work to date and it would be criminal of the industry not to reward them in some way come awards season. The chemistry between these two performers is genuine, searing and very intimate. The very last can be seen in graphic detail in the two scenes of sex between the characters. One in the beginning is naughtily playful and shows how much in love the two characters still are and the second being more brutal and primal as the hidden layers of each character is slowly peeled away to show whats been hidden all along.

For an art-film masquerading as an action-thriller, A History of Violence is very deliberate in setting up each violent outburst. There's an underlying dread that permeates through each set-up. We know that something is about to happen, but its not rushed and gradually builds-up until something has to break. The violence is not your stereotypical action sequence that looks staged, but comes and goes quickly with the brutality and lethality of reality. In fact, the violence has the feel of being very intimate. Everything is up close and personal. Nothing is done from a distance and each strike and violent act painful to see, yet in all instances each scene also gets a rousing response from the audience. This is particularly evident in a scene concerning Tom Stall's teenage son dealing with a particular high school bully in brutal fashion. Everyone in this film is touched by violence in some way or another. From the very young to the very old. The final scene at the dinner table is both haunting and familiar. With all that has been going on through Tom's life and that of his family there's a sense of acceptance of the violent genie that was unleashed in the beginning and one of "life must go on" mentality.

I must say that A History of Violence has to be one of the best films I've seen since I've been watching them. For a film that is really just a revenge-thriller similar to Chan-wook Park's Oldboy, Cronenberg's latest has so many layers and depth to it that anyone who sees it are going to be tempted to talk about its themes and subtext lon after they've left the theater. Where Oldboy is like a hard kick in the gut then a devastation stomp on the neck, A History of Violence is more insidious, intimate and subversive --- like a sharp papercut just beneath the fingernail that lingers and tells one that its going to be there for awhile and there to stay. Some may end up not liking the film due to its deliberate nature or not having enough people dying in elaborately staged action sequences, but that will only show exactly what Cronenberg has been trying to show. That people nowadays have been so inured and desensitized by violence that we've come to accept it as entertainment and actually have come to yearn and need it like a drug-addict looking for their next hit. One of the best films of 2005, if not one of the best in the past decade. Read more ›