A History of Violence (2005)

“A lot of great-looking women in the world. I never met one made me wanna give up all the others.” – Richie Cusack

Number of Times Seen – 2  (1 may 2006 and 25 Nov 2013)

Brief Synopsis – The owner of a local diner has his past come back to haunt him when he foils an attempted robbery.

My Take on it – Viggo Mortensen only became a well known actor relatively late in life (he was 41 when he starred in the Lord of The Rings Trilogy), but since then , he has shown how great an actor he can be in such a wide variety of genres.

This movie is a cross between an action movie and a drama and numerous times there are scenes here that keep crossing both of those lines over and over.

We can easily see the anguish that this family goes thru when being stalked by people who think they know who they really are.  The story is very well written and it keeps the viewer knowing only what the characters know, nothing more until it is necessary.

The cast here is really good.  Besides Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris and William Hurt all play their excellently scripted characters very well.  Hurt only appears for about 10 minutes and for this role, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

The best part about this movie is its length.  It is only slightly more than 90 minutes and is very tightly written that we don’t feel that anything drags on or that anything is missing.  It is all very neatly scripted for that length.  Many movies try to have a longer run-time just for the sake of it and it often hurts the movie because there are too many lulls in the momentum.

This movie doesn’t have that problem at all.

Bottom Line – Excellent story, great cast, just the right length.  Recommended!

Rating – Globe Worthy