A History of Violence is high among the most clever and thought-provoking films of the year. The Irony of David Cronenberg making a film that literally tricks the audience into examining their fascination with violence, is something that won't be lost on too many film buffs. Cronenberg has made a career out of graphic violence (I mean the highlight of Scanners is when a man's head explodes). So for it to be him that creates this brutally brilliant masterpiece about the intrinsic nature of violence in our culture, as well as our love and fanatical response to it in film, makes A History of Violence all the more fascinating. In a way it reminds me of Sam Raimi when he surprised film fans the world over with his haunting treatise on violence and greed - A Simple Plan.

A History of Violence works on as many levels as it's title. In the more literal sense the film's title refers to the central character of the film, the stoic and soft-spoken Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) whose idyllic life is encroached upon by violence and soon leads to the question as to whether there are skeletons in his closet that might point to "his" history of violence. Yet in the larger sense A History of Violence is a bit of an indictment of human nature, particularly in this day and age where violence has become part and parcel with American life - from films, to video games, to crime on the street. Cronenberg asks us to look at our violent culture, invites us to laugh at it, then hits us with the price tag. It's ingenious film making that may bring the veteran director some award consideration this year.

The man has created his masterpiece, that is in some ways is a summation of his entire career, turned around to stare us in our beady little eye almost in judgment of our vicarious sins. I'm still just in awe of this carefully layered and amazingly crafted film. I knew this was going to be a good film, but I had no idea that I was going to see a movie that rivals Hitchcock for it's ingenious twists and turns and pervasive suspensefulness. Not to mention a film that also tips it's hat to the classic Western with generous shadings of everything from Scarface to Pulp Fiction. The film works twofold - by following the basic rules of an action film narrative, but constantly asking for art-house responses to the scenarios it presents. As such A History of Violence takes a deceptively simple narrative and makes it devilishly complex. Not even in dreams do we escape violence and the film begins with a couple of hardened thugs who unleash a particularly heinous spree of violence at a motel - the victims even including a young girl.

Cut to the Stall household where his young daughter has just suffered a nightmare and Mortensen and Bello are there to comfort her and assure her that there are no such thing as monsters. This is particularly powerful juxtaposed as it is against the previous scene. Mortensen's Stall owns a small Diner in small town Indiana and is the gentle and doting father of his young daughter and his teenage son Jack (Ashton Holmes) and is passionately in love with his wife played by Maria Bello. The very next day, a routine night at the diner is shattered when the thugs from the motel pay a frightening visit, and though they initially make overtures of simply robbing the place, we, the audience know that these guys probably won't stop there. Then just as it appears that there will be more innocent blood spilled - out of nowhere Mortensen smashes a coffee pot into the face of one of the criminals grabs his gun and with a surprising amount of skill and alacrity, turns the thugs into throw rugs.

Right away Tom Stall is accorded a fair measure of celebrity as his heroics make it on television and overnight he becomes a local hero. The publicity has a positive impact on the diner's business as well as his sex life (all the sudden Bello not only has a handsome man for a husband - but a celebrity hero capable of protecting his family against all manner of human garbage) this all translates into fireworks in the bedroom, including some of the most hot and sexually charged love scenes I've watched for some time. But this is only the beginning of Cronenberg's grand treatise on the effects of violence. The director is zealously intent on showing us that almost all violence comes at a price - you don't just shoot someone (no matter if they happen to be the scum of the earth) and walk away clean. Cronenberg is telling us that violence does not work like it does in the movies, consequences invariably follow.

To wit - not long after Tom's heroics, three more unsavory characters show up in town - their spokesman a scarred and deformed Ed Harris - who openly claims that Tom is not the man he professes to be, but rather a former gangster by the name of Joey Cusack, who happens to be the man responsible for his disfigurement courtesy of a bit of work with a length of barb-wire. Tom laughs all this off and maintains a bemused distance from these wild accusations, but it is enough to plant the seeds of doubt in everyone from the denizens of the diner to the guy sitting next to you at the multiplex. Harris seals everyone's suspicion when he asks Tom's wife - "if you're not Crazy Joey - how come he's so good at it killing people?" And with that the peaceful slice of the American pie they had been enjoying has changed forever - never to return. Such is the nature of violence - whatever it touches it changes - permanently.

Thus with Harris and Co. cruising the streets of Millwood in dark sunglasses and a black towncar Mortensen is forced to make some kind of move. However my respect for movie-goers prevents me from spelling out any more about the plot without warning you that the following could be considered something of a spoiler. It won't spoil much - but if you'd just as soon see the film with all of it's surprises in tact then this is a good place to bale out. Fortunately there are several more things I can openly discuss without playing the spoiler whatsoever. It's about at this point in the movie where Jack (Tom's son) becomes involved with a bit of violence himself, both reacting to a bully and later by defending the reputation of his father. Though this part of the film is a sidelight, it actually crystallizes Cronenberg's chief question in some ways more pointedly than Tom's story. In Jack this change, this sudden violent streak, offers us a more distilled case study of its nature. Is a proclivity toward violence something we're born with or is it learned behavior? The age old question of Nature vs. Nurture is raised by Jack's behavior. Holmes plays the troubled youngster with great subtlety and he is so likable in the role that his circumstances are all the more poignant.

As for Mortensen his is a performance beyond anything he's offered to date. He remains unflappable in the face of the menacing forces brought to bear upon his life. (Spoiler Alert) and once he has made the decision to confront the ghosts from his past - the film takes on the nature of one of those classic Westerns where a lone gunman must (against his will) strap on his holster one more time. Mortensen reminds both of Eastwood and Gary Cooper maintaining a grim resignation about this one last foray into the ways of his past. Though certainly one of Cronenberg's most conventional films, he still manages to sustain an intensity and genuine sense of menace. Yet from the beginning of the second act, the film is shot through with black humor, and remains well balanced, even the over-the-top gangster turns by William Hurt, Stephen McHattie and Harris are like vivid paint on the directors pallette that counter the even tones of Bello and Holmes and the iconic gray of Mortensen.

David Cronenberg is a director who has made a successful career making the kind of films he wants - pretty much in a league of his own. And much like Sam Raimi, has now proven that he is a director capable of anything.