David Cronenberg’s Only Comic Book Adaptation Is A Quiet But Violent Masterpiece

gamerant.com:

David Cronenberg is a filmmaker who enjoys making out-of-this-world films containing gruesome violence and sexual content, such as Crash (1997), Scanners, and Videodrome. A History Of Violence (based on the 1997 graphic novel of the same name) also contains bloody violence and sex but is one of the director's quieter films due to the subtleness and sensitivity in its characters. It is simply structured but contains complex moral themes, such as the nature of violence and what causes people to become violent towards others.

In this action thriller, Viggo Mortensen stars as Tom Stall, a man with a loving wife and two children, and works at a diner in a small town in Indiana with generally nice people. One evening, two men attempt to steal money from Tom's restaurant and assault one of his female workers. However, before both men can accomplish their robbery, Tom manages to shoot and kill both criminals. The incident causes Tom and his family to gain public recognition and grabs the attention of men from Tom's hidden past.

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Based on the characters in this film, violence can be caused by a number of reasons. In terms of the two criminals who attempt to rob Tom Stall's diner, they shoot and kill people in order to steal anything they want, including money. For Tom, he shoots both robbers in self-defense to protect his friends and fellow workers at the diner.

However, Tom managed to easily take down the robbers because he actually has a history of violence from his previous life as a hitman named Joey Cusack (his actual identity, which he hid from everyone, including his family). When a mobster named Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris) shows up at Tom's diner after