Thursday, January 5, 2012

8/50x2: A History of Violence

So, Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) is a family man that runs a local diner. He is married to Edie (Maria Bello) and has a son Jack (Ashton Holmes) and daughter Sarah (Heidi Hayes).

This is the premise of A History of Violence.

His life appears to be great. He has a great relationship with his wife and the members of the town love him.
One night at the diner two robbers attempt to rob the place and also kill one of Tom's employees. Out of nowhere Tom appears to go ninja and takes down both robbers, saving his employee and the diner.

News spreads fast and Tom's face is plastered all over the news and newspapers.

One day at the diner a man Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris) shows up claiming that he knows Tom, but not as Tom, instead as Joey Cusack - an Irish mobster from Philadelphia.

Tom of course refuses this accusation - but for some reason Fogarty and his gang just will not let it go.

One night Tom and Jack get into an argument and Jack runs off - only to get kidnapped by Fogarty. Fogarty uses this to get some face time with Tom.

The rest of the film is basically Tom, who has been living a new life, trying to fix his previous life to get back to the one he is living. But, now that his family knows the truth has the damage already been done?

This was a pretty decent film. The action scenes may have been few and far between, but they were good when they were there. Mortensen and Bello really stood out in the film for me. I haven't seen too many Mortensen films outside of Lord of the Rings, but I respect him as an actor.

Grade:

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