Metacritic reviews

Other films this year will have to sweat bullets to match the explosive power and subversive wit of David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. It slams you like a body punch and then starts messing with your head.

Cronenberg holds up a mirror, but he leaves it up to us to recoil at what we see.

Cronenberg's movie manages to have its cake and eat it--impersonating an action flick in its staccato mayhem while questioning these violent attractions every step of the way.

Cronenberg's movie is eerily compelling and darkly humorous. And chilling - to the bone.

Clever and fast-paced thriller.

It turns a hot topic into a pretty cool entertainment--one that satisfies the viewers' need for righteous revenge while leaving them a queasy little question on the way out: Does gun diplomacy make sense only in movies? Or do Americans want it to play out in real life?

Ed Harris and William Hurt deliver inspired turns as the villains.

If this all sounds very heavy, well, it is, but it's also very, very funny. Cronenberg may want to say something important about violence, but he's also head over heels for it, ending each gunfight and neck-breaking with a close-up on the victim, blood either pooling behind his head or brains spilling from his face. Big laughs.

Although there's little wrong with the first two-thirds, A History of Violence slides onto a tangential path during its final act, and this misstep reduces the production's overall effectiveness.

Lack of depth, complexity or strangeness make this a relatively routine entry for the director.