A History of Violence

2005
18
1h 36m

IMDb RATING

7.4/10

263K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

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Gangster One-Person Army Action Action Crime Drama Thriller

A mild-mannered man becomes a local hero through an act of violence, which sets off repercussions that will shake his family to its very core.A mild-mannered man becomes a local hero through an act of violence, which sets off repercussions that will shake his family to its very core.A mild-mannered man becomes a local hero through an act of violence, which sets off repercussions that will shake his family to its very core.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.4/10

263K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

1,064

169

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 2 Oscars
- 37 wins & 84 nominations total

User reviews1.2K

Featured review

7/10

Can You Ever Truly Escape Your Past?

When a couple of thugs come into his dinner and start to make trouble, a man shows an ability to protect his customers and business in a way that seems more skilled than heroic. His actions bring him unwanted attention which brings folks from his pass and danger to his family.

Not a bad film. I was expecting more suspense than what I got but it is a well filmed, scripted and acted movie. Glad I came across it.

Trivia
William Hurt received an Oscar nomination for this film for Best Supporting Actor despite only being in one scene which lasted less than 10 minutes.

Goofs
(at around 1h 12 mins) Tom's truck is a GMC when he is working on getting it running. However, when driving to Philly, you can see Chevrolet is written on the steering wheel.

Quotes
[last lines]
Richie Cusack: [Joey holds a gun to Richie's head] Jesus, Joey.
Tom Stall: [as Joey shoots Richie in the head, then stands over his dead body] Jesus, Richie.

Alternate versions
There are some minute differences between the US and the International version when it comes to some of the violent scenes:
Fogarty's thug, who gets his nose smashed into his skull has more blood spurt out in the International version in the shot where he is dying on the ground.
When Joey stomps on Richie's thug's throat, he spits blood (instead of it 'welling up') and the sound effect of the neck breaking is louder. Both shots last the same length of time and use the same take, the amount of blood was simply toned down digitally for the MPAA. Most video versions outside the U.S. use the 'international version' but the shots appear in the supplements on the U.S. DVD (In the featurette titled 'Violence's History', Cronenberg shows the U.S. and international cut scenes side by side and explains the reason why there wasn't a standard 'unrated' version in the U.S. was because the changes were so small).