A History of Violence Critic Reviews

The film has the perverse intelligence of Cronenberg's other movies. It's not his best, but it is certainly his most accessible, least stagy work, obeying the laws of chronology and serving up characters whom we recognize as people.Read the full review

Seems deceptively straightforward, coming from a director with Cronenberg's quirky complexity. But think again. This is not a movie about plot, but about character.Read the full review

David Cronenberg's brilliant movie -- without a doubt one of the very best of the year.Read the full review

A ticking time bomb of a movie, a gripping, incendiary, casually subversive piece of work that marries pulp watchability with larger concerns without skipping a beat.Read the full review

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 the full review

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 the full review

But for director David Cronenberg and the commitment of his actors, A History of Violence might have been a cartoony action film. Its origins are in a cartoon, of sorts -- specifically, in a graphic novel, by John Wagner and Vince Locke.Read the full review

Over-the-top and shockingly vicious. But what strikes some critics as complexity feels to me like shame--the shame of Cronenberg, an uncompromising director whose bloodshed has always been genuinely horrifying.Read the full review

Clever and fast-paced thriller.Read the full review