film | Identity crisis

Director David Cronenberg is no stranger to sicko cinema. His icky '80s remake of The Fly found a decomposing Jeff Goldblum storing his rotting penis in the medicine cabinet, and he helmed the über-bizarre car-wreck-fetish drama Crash a decade ago. So when he spends most of the first reel of A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE establishing the quietly idyllic existence of a serene restaurant owner (Viggo Mortensen), his loving wife (Maria Bello) and their two adorable children in picturesque small-town Indiana, you're counting the moments until the enticingly protective Norman Rockwell tarp gets yanked away and some serious shit goes down. And some serious shit definitely goes down the night two homicidal hoodlums stroll into the family diner with an appetite for things that aren't on the menu. In a jarringly bloody flash, Mortensen fights back, and his split-second vigilante heroics grab the attention of both the local media and, consequently, a few shady types from Philly — Ed Harris oozes understated menace as their head-goon mouthpiece — who roll into the neighborhood and suggest through stolid intimidation that Mortensen is an ex-killer hiding from the mob in all-American anonymity.

And then, as the movie begins to play an is-he-or-isn't-he? game with Mortensen's true identity, the edgy tension that Cronenberg has carefully built in precarious jenga-tower fashion just kinda tumbles into nothingness. The rest of the script morphs into a parade of tired suspense devices — would Bello really allow her young daughter to wander out of sight at the mall after foreboding brutes with striking facial disfigurements have tacitly threatened her husband? — and though a subplot involving their bullied teen son (Ashton Holmes) seems necessary to address whether human brutality is inherent or imitated, it ultimately feels like a half-baked contrivance to shoehorn the boy into peril at exactly the right time. The performances are thankfully more genuine than the writing, particularly the terrific Bello (The Cooler), turning what could've been a throwaway role into the most vital piece of the film, and an atypically lively William Hurt as a memorably kooky crime boss. Even Mortensen's vacantly gallant screen persona is a good fit to his character's ambiguities, but an unconvincing finale reduces him to Batman-style action manuvers that might've worked in the graphic-novel source material but look totally ridiculous acted out. Sure, Mortensen has minimal trouble zipping past bullets fired at close range, but A History of Violence ends up riddled with holes. C