When you think of comic book movies, it’s completely understandable that your mind more than likely wanders towards spandex-clad superheroes using their fantastical abilities to save the world, which makes it very easy to forget that A History of Violence is comfortably one of the best the genre has ever had to offer.
David Cronenberg hardly sounds as if he’d be the filmmaker to deliver a stone-cold classic that technically exists within the same genre as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but that’s exactly what he did when he transformed John Wagner and Vincent Locke’s graphic novel into a two-time Academy Award nominated slice of cinematic excellence.
Both James Gunn and Shazam! director David F. Sandberg have named A History of Violence among their personal favorite comic book flicks, so it’s not as if its origins have been completely ignored or overlooked. On the other hand, it doesn’t come up anywhere near as often as it should when discussing the finest examples the medium has ever produced, which is definitely deserves to be a part of.
One positive is that almost 20 years on from its release, A History of Violence continues to captivate audiences, with FlixPatrol naming it as one of the most-watched features on iTunes this week. Viggo Mortensen headlines an esteemed ensemble as a small town diner owner who finds his past catching up to him after brutally dispensing of two would-be assailants who try to rob his business, with the previous life he’d tried so hard to keep buried coming back to haunt his present-day existence.
