A Few Words About History Of Violence

OK so I finally got this movie last night after letting it sit on my dusty IKEA TV stand since late October. That's right. Late October. Thank Ceiling Human for Netflix.

Oh, boy. Part of me wishes I'd gotten to it right away, so the memory would be long forgotten. The other part of me rejoices in that I have such a delightful steaming turd of a movie to review for this site. On a side note, when I typed the word "turd", I noticed that the spelling "terd" triggers my spellcheck on Firefox. So, the official spelling of the word turd is definitely a "u". You should log that valuable tidbit away for later.

Now, to the heart of the movie. Viggo Mortenson stars as an infuriatingly calm small town man, who seems to be harboring a deeply violent past as a mob hitman. Sounds promising, doesn't it? Unfortunately, the film never strays far from this concept. The pacing flectuates wildly, making the plot unpredictable, but in a bad way. It keeps us guessing, but only as to the absurd angle they are going to dart towards next. The character motivations are incredibly confusing, and a sex scene that basically amounts to soft core rape porn pushes all boundaries of decency, even more than the autopsy-like closeups of gorey bullet wounds and pools of blood. (A better title for this movie would have been "for those who like violence".) The wife of our conflicted hero (played by Maria Bello) continually confuses and disturbs as she wanders at random between victim and enabler. Both of the sex scenes seem pointless and lengthy, and, like the gratuitous violence itself, used to pad out otherwise plotless movie. And don't even get me started on the mob boss who seems to have Down's Syndrome and allows Tom to single handedly take down every mob goon in existance. Yeah.

There's violence done well, and then there's violence done as an attempt to cover your ass when you don't have anything better. Its obvious which category this movie falls in to.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate this movie negative steaming pile of dog shit. Its a shame too, 'cause Viggo's face is so damn bootiful. Save your money and time and rent a real gangster movie. Goodfellas will do.

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