A History of Violence

Name: A History of Violence
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Crime
Released: September 23, 2005
Duration: 96 min
Rating: 82
Cast: Ed Harris, Maria Bello, Viggo Mortensen

2005

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 37 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 892 Ratings

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7.4

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7.4	Your Score
7.4	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 892 Ratings

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A History Of Violence

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Movie Details & Credits

New Line Cinema | Release Date: September 23, 2005 | R

Starring: Ed Harris, Maria Bello, Viggo Mortensen

Summary: Tom Stall is living a happy and quiet life with his lawyer wife and their two children in the small town of Millbrook, Indiana, until one night their idyllic existence is shattered when Tom foils a vicious attempted robbery in his diner. (New Line Cinema)

Director: David Cronenberg

Genre(s): Drama, Thriller, Crime

Rating: R

Runtime: 96 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Peter Travers

Other films this year will have to sweat bullets to match the explosive power and subversive wit of David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. It slams you like a body punch and then starts messing with your head. Read full review

100

Desson Thomson

A sobering reflection on our culture's attitude toward violence. Read full review

Cronenberg holds up a mirror, but he leaves it up to us to recoil at what we see. Read full review

Rene Rodriguez

It's a punchy, straight-up genre picture, a crime drama that might have once starred Charles Bronson or Steven Seagal. Read full review

Keith Phipps

Ed Harris and William Hurt deliver inspired turns as the villains. Read full review

James Berardinelli

Although there's little wrong with the first two-thirds, A History of Violence slides onto a tangential path during its final act, and this misstep reduces the production's overall effectiveness. Read full review

Stanley Kauffmann

This sort of investigation has been done so masterfully by Sam Peckinpah in "The Wild Bunch" and Oliver Stone in "Natural Born Killers" that, in a sternly utilitarian sense, we don't need Cronenberg. He is not, as far as I have seen, in their class. He proves it again in A History of Violence. Read full review

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User Reviews

cameronmorewood

Nov 8, 2012

It is very rare that a film is so compelling that it keeps my eyes absolutely glued to the screen from its opening sequence to its final frame. Surely, A History of Violence is one of the great films of the decade.

7 of 10 users found this helpful73

SamS.

Nov 11, 2005

Woo hoo.