A History of Violence

Tom (Viggo Mortensen) has a family and runs a dinner in a small town, when two gentlemen walk into his dinner one night and cause problems with everyone. Tom ends up stopping them by shooting and killing them both very neatly. This causes the media to go wild, attracting some strange men, one played by Ed Harris, who has an injured eye, to stop by the dinner and ask Tom, why he thinks he is so good at killing people and also advising Tom, that his real name is Joey, and that Joey/Tom is the one that gave him his injured eye. Tom tells him that he has made a mistake and that he is not Joey. But Harris doesn't by it and leaves. Harris ends up stalking Tom's family, to where Tom's wife is starting to wonder if these men are right about her husband Tom and whether he is Joey. She ends up giving Tom the cold shoulder, but Tom tries to convince her that he is not Joey, and basically forces his self on her, by having rough sex with her, on the stairs of their house. Harris ends up showing up at Tom's house with two other thugs and demands that Tom/Joey come with them, to see Tom/Joey's supposed brother Richie. A fight ensues and Tom ends up killing one thug and severally injuring the other, by smashing his noes, up into his skull! Harris ends up shooting Tom in the shoulder, but not before Tom's son, grabs the shotgun, and somehow without anyone seing him, and shoots Harris in the back, killing him. Tom hugs his son, but gives him a look like Ok, good job, whatever. Tom then leaves his house and drives to another town and goes into a beer joint and meets up with some other guy, and they both go to Richie's house. Tom walks in, and gets frisked down by somemore thugs, and meets with Richie. They hug, and you find out, that Tom really is Joey, and that Richie is his brother and that Richie is disappointed with him. They then talk and the guy that Tom/Joey met up with earlier, tries to strangle Tom/Joey, but he fights back and another violent fight breaks out.

Continuity mistake: When the mobsters have Tom's son, he drops the shotgun in the grass and walks forward. When the wife is looking from the window, the shotgun is missing.

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Trivia: This was the last major Hollywood movie to be released on VHS.

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