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A review by stacys_books
A History of Violence by Vince Locke, John Wagner
2.0
Though this is a solid story, it's a standard one of haunted pasts and mob revenge. Tom McKenna is the congenial owner of a diner in Nowhere, U.S.A., a man who revels in his family small-town life—a life full of softball games, cookouts, and church.
But this life is shattered when two thugs show up at his diner with the intent to rob and kill. Tom successfully kills them and makes national news. Here the real trouble starts. Some mobsters from New York show up, certain he is Joey Cusack, who killed a couple of mob cohorts twenty years ago. Is it a case of mistaken identity? Or does Tom hide a dark secret?
Ironically or not, the film is better—much better, in fact, as it turns a standard mob revenge story into a character study on the nature of violence. Can a violent person truly change, and if so, how much? I won't spoil this by pontificating on the details, but suffice it to say we find out just how much Joey is left in Tom after all these years.
But this life is shattered when two thugs show up at his diner with the intent to rob and kill. Tom successfully kills them and makes national news. Here the real trouble starts. Some mobsters from New York show up, certain he is Joey Cusack, who killed a couple of mob cohorts twenty years ago. Is it a case of mistaken identity? Or does Tom hide a dark secret?
Ironically or not, the film is better—much better, in fact, as it turns a standard mob revenge story into a character study on the nature of violence. Can a violent person truly change, and if so, how much? I won't spoil this by pontificating on the details, but suffice it to say we find out just how much Joey is left in Tom after all these years.