I hate to say it, but I came away feeling a bit disappointed from this one after going in with high hopes. For me, the majority of the film just felt rather flat and I'm putting this down to a screenplay that doesn't really go anywhere any time soon. Sure there were a few plot threads going on but none of them felt particularly inspired or original.
But that's not to say I thought it was a bad film. The majority of the cast were excellent, with olnly Vincent Cassel grating on me, but again I put that down to the way hsis character was written rather than his performance. Naomi Watts' English accent was spot on and Armin Mueller-Stahl was a great villain as Semyon. As for Viggo, well he was as excellent as has already been stated many times.
Visually the film is another triumph for Cronenberg. I'm giving him bonus points for simply filming the city of London and not just it's landmarks. It was very authentic for a non-English director calling the shots. Another thing that stood out to eme was the comparative lack of onscreen violence. This isn't a fault of the film, but besides the bath house scene (one of the best fight scenes I've seen in a long time, made all the better with an audience's reactions to go with it) there were just a couple of throat slittings. Again not a bad thing, but I did get the impression that Cronenberg tried to get as much gore in them as possible when they popped up.
So overall a disappointment, partly because I love A History of Violence and partly because it just felt too flat. But it was still expert filmmaking with some stand out performances, so it just slips into my top 10 of the year so far. Just.
