Evident in the play on words of its title, A History of Violence wants to have its cake and eat it too. Not content to deal solely with the specific, relating the tale of one man’s bout with a hidden darkness newly revealed, Cronenberg’s latest needs us to know it’s something more, nothing short of a general treatise on the nature of violence with a capital “V.” That a filmmaker responsible for a body of work as provocative and compelling as Cronenberg’s should attempt to smuggle in some broader meaning with his pulp is neither surprising nor ignoble—indeed we cinephiles get all gooey over just that sort of genre transcendence—and perhaps no contemporary director is more accomplished at legitimizing the ostensibly disposable as this particularly creepy Canadian. What one does find surprising is that a film as flimsy and disappointing with respect to such grand aspirations as A History of Violence could go so fawningly unchallenged by the critical consensus of 2005

A few fine points and disclaimers: I enjoyed A History of Violence. The opening sequence is breathless and unnerving. The purely visceral effect of much of the gunplay and bodily damage does come bearing a disquieting aftertaste, an odd marriage of the righteous and the reprehensible. Yet the leap from a measured appreciation of its strengths to cries of “masterpiece!” was somehow made all too easily. Facile comparisons (Unforgiven was bandied about quite a bit) and grandiose claims were made, most along the lines of how the film “complicates our complacency with onscreen violence,” or “subverts Hollywood’s historical depiction of morally justified, heroic violence,” or words to that effect.

All well and good, I suppose, but it seems to me that many critics, whether conscious of it or not, were more likely in a rush to formulate arguments sounding of high-minded import in order to justify their enthusiasm for the simple, guilty, icky-ness of it all, and for the more esoteric pleasures of genre play, wherein lie the true strengths of this above average film.

Interestingly I read very little critically about A History of Violence as genre variation, as belonging to a particular tradition of American film—typically noir—wherein Menace appears suddenly, threatening mayhem and corruption, unwelcome on the morally pristine doorstep of small town America. Examples are films such as Shadow of a Doubt or Night of the Hunter; or films in which a personal history of violence, however well concealed or amended for, bubbles back to the present as the return of the repressed, as in Out of the Past or The Killers; or Westerns in which the aging gunslinger is reluctantly forced out of retirement, as in Shane or Pale Rider.

One need not know these films to enjoy Cronenberg’s, nor is it my suggestion that A History of Violence is simply a rip-off. I feel fairly confident that many critics’ appreciations of the film were enhanced to no small degree by how it positions itself within these generic traditions, yet there seemed to be little acknowledgement of such amongst all the claims that the film threw some kind of revolutionary revisionist spotlight cinematic representations of violence.

To that point, comparing A History of Violence with the level of revisionism at work in a film such as Unforgiven becomes patently absurd under close scrutiny. Eastwood’s film not only explicitly critiques decades of Hollywood “Cowboys and Indians” mythmaking on a manifest level—as in the jailhouse scene in which Little Bill Daggett deconstructs the truth of the quick-draw showdown, or where ‘The Schofield Kid’ is nauseated with remorse upon completing his first killing—but also practically dares one to find gratification in its mud-soaked anti-climax, achieving nothing so straightforward as the “justly” administered vengeance concluding Pale Rider, for example.

If A History of Violence appears to give us our vengeance fix with one hand while taking it away with the other, there is no question which ultimately wins out: in the end, the baddies are expelled from town and Tom dispatches his evil brother Richie (William Hurt in a caricatured and bafflingly Oscar-nominated turn) with decidedly uncomplicated, “America, Fuck Yeah!” gusto. Order is restored. Looks like we needed violence after all.

Unlike History, Unforgiven earns something like the right to speak earnestly about violence through its uncompromising commitment to verisimilitude. There is a grim realism to English Bob’s being thrashed about the horse-shit littered main street of Big Whisky at the hands of Little Bill, or the scarred, submissive face of Delilah, prostitute as property. For me these images take on an indelible authenticity; though far enough removed in time, they bear a humanism indicative of the same universe as my own. In contrast, History’s admittedly thin comic-book veneer, ham-fisted symbolism, and uneven commitment to character development (e.g. the laughably drawn bully, pulled straight from an after-school special) must necessarily keep the film at arm’s length.

It’s true our “pleasure” in onscreen violence does not come easy in A History of Violence, that we’re forced to question the consequences of even the most righteous ass-kicking administered by protagonist Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen). If Cronenberg’s camera lingers a little longer than we’d like on abrupt cut-ins of gaping flesh-wounds inflicted by “our hero,” he’s delighting in creeping us out, plain and simple, borrowing directly from his bread and butter horror conventions to keep us on our toes. These moments are best appreciated as the expectation subverting, genre mixing pleasures they are, and one should forego indulging too much pretense beyond that.

After all, manipulating audience ambivalence toward onscreen violence is nothing new, and one need look no further than the horror genre itself to realize the degree of complexity with which such themes are routinely explored. That would mean taking Horror films seriously, however. How much easier to simply inflate the significance of a relatively “edgy” offering already inoculated by star power? In the end, A History of Violence has nothing genuinely useful to say about how I might consider or interact with violence as I go about my daily life, whereas a film such as The Devil’s Rejects—devoid of pretense and free to revel in its depravity—left me pondering the effects of violence, real and representational, for weeks.

Lastly, the critical impulse to crown A History of Violence as representing the pinnacle of Cronenberg’s achievement is perhaps the most misguided assertion of all those made about the film in 2005. No doubt Cronenberg leaves his stamp on History. most clearly felt in the film’s insistence on violence as virus. Yet to suggest that this graphic novel adaptation should somehow represent the totality of the creative work produced by one of the most original and authentically auteurist directors of the past three decades is either to misunderstand or underappreciate it. In a way, it’s all there in Cronenberg’s first film, Shivers: viral contamination, sex as monstrosity, the evolution of a “new flesh,” a lust-driven car crash. Not to mention how eerily appropriate Shivers’ original title, It Came from Within, would be for A History of Violence—or all of Cronenberg’s work, for that matter—as well as a far more interesting choice in a title for “on the nose” sentiment. But alas, no Viggo. History may indeed be Cronenberg’s most commercially palatable offering to date, but let’s retain some meaning for the word “masterpiece” by using it only where there exists a reasonable claim for doing so.