Synopsis

The film tells the story of an ordinary family's life after the father receives unwanted national attention for a seemingly vigilante-style self-defense killing at his diner.

Official Review

Appropriately enough, “A History of Violence,” hits like a loud, open-palmed slap on the face: this is a near-perfect film that somehow manages to be confounding, hilarious, shocking, infuriating, and enormously moving – usually all at the same time. Yes, it’s audacious. It’s lurid and manipulative and gory and chilly and at times seems so wildly uneven that you wonder if any two people on set had been given the same shooting script. But God bless him, David Cronenberg has accomplished what may be his masterwork by squeezing all of his keen, absolutely unique observations about the human condition into an utterly non-Cronenbergian film. And with his trademark (and, some might argue, self-conscious) creepiness curbed, he has turned in one of the most jaw-droppingly humane gorefests ever made. …Read More