A History of Violence Reviews

Why is everyone in the reviews saying this is good I’m so confused, the acting is like one tier above porn acting and more so the plot is just kinda stupid. The characters are all boring as hell. Like it felt like they were doing a parody of nuclear family characters for the wife and kids. They were so nothing burger. Also why was it 6 bucks to rent this movie nottttt doing that. I went into it blind just cause it’s a cronenberg and I really thought it was gonna be about the two guys at the beginning cause I feel like that would have been a way more interesting movie than this shit. Like the family is so boring so you don’t care about Joey like winning, and the other guys aren’t fleshed out enough (before they die) so it’s not like you lowkey want them to win. And I don’t mean that in a “i can’t root for the mc if he’s a bad guy way” I mean like he was so boring I could not gaf way. Make him eviler??? Eastern promises mogs this movie so hard. I kinda think cronenberg was going for a similar vibe with the two of them and either he perfected (or at least greatly improved) it with eastern promises, or the script and actors were just wayyyy better. Yk this movie feels like. It’s like a weird bad short story that like ur uncle wrote or like you find it on the printer in a public library. I can’t really explain that but I’m right.

Should’ve been a porno, not a Hollywood production—multiple extended, pointless sex scenes. Terrible dialogue, bad acting, ridiculous music and nonsensical plot points. 90% of scenes lacked any purpose whatsoever. The bullying was hysterical, feel like I got pranked—so bad.

Killers will always keep killing

No idea how this has so many positive ratings.
It stinks. Bad writing (there's a reason you've never heard of any of the writers other work).
Awful acting throughout.
unnecessary bush.
And yet this was an Oscar nominated film... no clue.
Absolutely pointless experience.
4/10

Great early 2000’s thriller!

Wow
So I love Viggo
This was intense
Grain of salt

Honestly, it’s kind of a slog through the first two acts. Then there’s a scene on the stairs, Maria Bello goes full frontal, and William Hurt shows up with a terrible ‘00s neck beard.

1.5/5 ⭐️

I wanted to find a lesser known mob movie. Mistake.

A History of Violence moves with a deliberate slowness that feels compelling. Lots of themes of survival of the fittest, innate violence, and identity. What I mostly liked though was the cinematography.

8

B minus

Bad acting. Only 1.5 hours, but felt longer. I was drawn in at the beginning (first like 2 mins) but then 20 minutes of nothing, including a long sex scene. It’s a slow burn with short (bad) action scenes, and 2 sex scenes. I had to look up if this was like an independent film..

Decently fun movie. Seemed like it was out of the late 80s. Bad writing and acting, which is surprising with this cast

7.0

Well written and great acting.

may 27, 26

6.5/10

Ok

Honestly very good. Viggo is very credible. Don’t understand the hate.

2/9/26: A visceral and perturbed contemplation of a human. Such fantastic acting from the two leads,, the children are a bit odd 😭. What an entrancing and thrilling story!

It was very good, mortensen gave exceptional performance as always but they needed to focus more on the backstory, felt like the last 30mins they needed to wrap up the movie and not giving it a proper ending 7/10