A History of Violence (2005)

Ebert calls it a brilliant and disturbing film that uses violence to explore identity and consequences. He singles out the performances and Cronenberg's precise direction for praise.

Dargis praises the film as a masterpiece of visceral thrills and indirection that forces viewers to confront the cost of movie violence. She highlights Cronenberg's refusal to let audiences indulge in violence without consequence.

The critic calls Cronenberg's film a stunning modern-day western that examines the role of violence in American society and popular culture through a pared-down thriller narrative. He highlights the uniformly excellent performances, especially by Mortensen and Harris, along with the superb cinematography.

Cronenberg respects the thriller needs of the pulp material while sneaking in deeper explorations of violence’s everyday underpinnings and a marriage in crisis. The critic highlights the lived-in intimacy between Mortensen and Bello and the way the film gets most graphic with characters’ emotions.

Cronenberg delivers journeyman work that feels like a work-for-hire rather than personal filmmaking, with the material treated like one-dimensional comic-book juvenilia. The critic singles out Maria Bello’s rich, soulfully wounded performance as the anchor that occasionally reveals cutting emotional truths about marriage and betrayal.

A confident return to form and Cronenberg’s most accessible film since The Fly, this comic-book fable influenced by Westerns sneaks in his familiar themes of violence as contagion and personal metamorphosis while leaving viewers uncomfortable about their reactions to the action.

Cronenberg’s study of violence and its effects on a family, laced with sex and humour, keeps the audience off-balance while showing the darkness behind the hero’s triumphs; it is a strange but compulsive watch from a director who knows exactly what he is doing.

Cronenberg gene-splices film noir and the Western into vigorous new shape in what looks like his most mainstream project in years but reveals characteristic themes and masterful classical screen language. It singles out the effective thriller elements combined with philosophical depth and strong performances from Mortensen and Bello.

Cronenberg's film is a fantastically sure-footed meta-thriller that is both rooted in and self-conscious about the pleasures of violent Hollywood thrillers. It singles out the hyperreal, detailed handling of violence and the performances, especially Mortensen's subtle shift in persona.

The film strips the graphic novel source to a wry look at how violence disrupts a family’s psyche, making it Cronenberg’s most straightforward and crowd-pleasing work in two decades, though perhaps too straightforward with fewer ambiguities than the premise deserves.

Though Cronenberg's most mainstream movie in years, it is marvellous as a terrific thriller that transcends generic concerns with a subversive critique of the American Dream. It singles out the brilliant wit, bravura style, perfect pacing and peak-form performances.

Cronenberg's film is a smashingly effective thriller and elegant character study that eschews gimmickry for challenging, superbly constructed cinema, marking it as the year's best. The critic singles out the stunning mood created by Peter Suschitzky's cinematography and the uniform excellence of the cast, particularly Mortensen and Bello.