 In one of the few negative reviews of David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun suggests that the title of the history course ought to be changed to Carnage for Art Houses 101. And clearly most other critics have indeed embraced this film not only as art, but as a lesson about the artless commerce of the movie business. Indeed, as Manohla Dargis points out in her review in the New York Times, Cronenberg sets his story "in a copy of the world that looks -- wouldn't you know it -- a lot like a movie. Mr. Cronenberg, a Canadian, is taking aim at this country, to be sure. But he is also taking aim at our violence-addicted cinema, those seductive, self-heroicizing self-justifications we sell to the world." Dargis's observations are hers alone. Each critic seems to have a different take on the movie. Compare her remarks to those of Lou Lumenick in the New York Post, who writes that the film is "a high-minded crowd pleaser that revels in the kinesthetic pleasures of the shootouts it's so busy deploring." To Steven Rea of the Philadelphia Inquirer, this is no piece of "art" at all but a "creepy gem of a thriller" that is "eerily compelling and darkly humorous. And chilling -- to the bone." But to Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times, it's a "a gripping, incendiary, casually subversive piece of work that marries pulp watchability with larger concerns without skipping a beat. ... It's the gift of Violence ... that it manages to do all these things without seeming to make a fuss. That's how strong and compelling its dead-on plot is." But Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times writes: "This is not a movie about plot, but about character. It is about how people turn out the way they do, and about whether the world sometimes functions like a fool's paradise." But perhaps the film's greatest gift is that people will -- if the critics are any example -- come away from it with their own take on what makes it a compelling movie. Chris Vognar in the Dallas Morning News settles for calling it shrewd, penetrating and, yes, entertaining. It's also one of the best films of the year." |
