A History of Violence

Well, if you're the type who likes a bit of blood and flesh and a few faithfully-created gunshot wounds... you'll love A History of Violence. Otherwise - you still might like it, you'll just have to cover your eyes a few times. :)

Noel and I watched it this evening. After a couple of minutes, Noel said "this is what you call a slow start to a movie". Yep, and it stayed that way. Slow, yes, and yet compelling. It was your average 95 minutes but it felt much longer. There was the odd fast-paced, forward-moving scene that kept me interested in between all the drawn-out character development and seemingly random scenes.

The main plot was great, I thought. Average, small-town, family guy put through hellish stuff and forced to be the unassuming hero... until... I was definitely fooled (mostly, I did pick up a couple of small clues) by the twist in the tale and enjoyed the finding out of what comes next. But there were a few thoughts that seemed like they wanted to be subplots - the teenage son, maybe gay, being bullied - why so much time spent on that if it wasn't going to go anywhere?

I wasn't terribly impressed with the acting - a bit too much "facial expression acting" - "happy face", "confused face", "shocked face", "relieved face" - especially from Maria Bello as the wife.
Ashton Holmes as the son was a bit more real. But hey, I still quite enjoyed the thing so it must've been alright.

But, uh, don't watch it when there are kids around. (a big thank you to mine for going to bed really early tonight!)