We went to see History of Violence tonight. Let me save you $8. Have you seen the trailer? Good, then you’ve already seen the most interesting parts of the movie. Shit, you seen the WHOLE movie.
Why can’t they make good movies anymore?
Its not that the plot was bad, its that it was non existant. You see, there’s this guy, who has (say it with me) a history of violence. Ex-mob type of guy, who has settled down in small town USA. The mob comes looking for him, he doesn’t appreciate it. The end.
Sounds interesting huh? Wrong! I thought it was going to be a Road to Perdition meets The Punisher sort of thing. Small town guy takes on the bad guys sort of thing.
3 scenes. 3! That’s how many moments of action we get. Unless you consider Vigo what’s-his-face running a small town diner to be “action”.
We are unfortunatly treated to a few scenes of another sort. 1970’s style “movie porn”, you know, the kind where if its tasteful it’s not really porn, it “cinema”. Yeah, well I’ve never seen a 69 in a major motion picture before and if this was “tasteful” they can just stop right fucking now. And I didn’t really appreciate the full frontal either.
This was yet another disappointing movies in a long disappointing summer. The only movie I can honestly say I enjoyed was Batman. Other than that this summer was crap. The winter isn’t shaping up to be much better either. The only movie I’m interested in at the moment is Goodnight And Goodluck, the black and white retelling of the Macarthy era.
Anyway, I’ve fallen off topic. Regardless, stay away from the History of Violence. It is not worth your time or money. The movie is weak and leaves you going “that’s it?” at the end. Pathetic. That turd could have been shot by SCAD students over a single weekend and turned in as a midterm project, that’s how little effort it appears went into this movie. The kind of movie where the actors agree to be in it because the movie they were supposed to be in was held up in preproduction and they needed something to pass the time.
Sad. D-
Have you watched much of Cronenberg’s other stuff? Going into a Cronenberg film expecting a fast paced action movie is sort of like going to the desert in search of water.
If by “other stuff” you mean that miserable piece of crap Crash, then yes. Another movie with a plot so loose I COULD have come up with it on an OHouse napkin. The only other thing I can remember him doing was Scanners, which was ok, but it was an entirely different genre.
Apparently this guy has a thing for non-emotional violence and graphic sex. That’s all I gleemed from this lastest opus.
I didn’t know it was one of his movies going into it, so, no water searching was happening. I was just looking for a movie of even the most basic entertaining value. Graphic violence? Sure, I can handle that. Hell, I’m not a prude, I can even appreciate a good sex scene. But this dribble was so “dry” and uninteresting it was sad.
The plot, the characters, the actors and the resolution were so blasaise’ and “oh well, whatever” that it made me completely not care about anyone or anything in the movie. I didn’t connect with the main characters struggle, mostly because HE didn’t convey struggle. He just kind of did whatever for 2 hours. The only character that showed any emotion or care was the teenager, and his was a minor plot point at best.
The whole “no plot, just character” has been a big thing for him sort of like it is for Jarmusch (who pulls it off a lot better most times). Crash is a pretty good example of that and is especially hard to watch. Spider is another one. It’s pretty unusual for a “no plot, just character” movie to get such wide release and promotion. I was sort of surprised when I saw History of Violence plastered all over commercials and late night talk shows.