AN ordinary family man goes to work each morning and comes home every night to put food on the table for his wife and young family. It's the decent thing to do.

Then, one day, two guys hold up the diner he owns and threaten the staff with guns. The man leaps over the counter and shoots them both. Dead.

Hailed a hero by his small town community, the ordinary guy doesn't really know why, he just wants to return to normal.

Click here for the movie website

But three guys turn up and start to menace him and his family. They call him by a different name, insinuating he has a secret past of extreme violence. Gangster violence.

Things will never be the same.

David Cronenberg, the master of Odd, has made his most accessible film to date as he holds a mirror up to the violence that exists in every corner of society. From the home to the workplace, via the school, the street and the television news, there's a seething anger in people's hearts. You know, you've felt it. We all have.

The ordinary guy is Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen). His wife is Edie (Maria Bello). They have two kids, a loving relationship and an ordinary home. Regular folks.

But Edie can't help but question whether or not her hero husband has a past in the name of Joey Cusack, the name used by the three menacing out of town visitors. How well does she know her man? What is he capable of?

A History of Violence is a perfectly paced dissection of the mood of the times. It's not slick, showy or self-important. It's slightly unsettling. Almost, but not quite, uncomfortable.

In places it looks like a cosy domestic drama, lit like a homely Disney flick of the 1960s. Elsewhere, it feels like a horror movie.

Mortensen and Bello are effective at the centre of the film, but the bravura performances come from Ed Harris and, particularly, William Hurt who oozes diabolical madness.

And in the final, wordless scene the family gathers round a table in silence, Tom's eyes pouring out his confusion. A hard man adrift in the world that is repulsed by his skills, yet secretly aspires to them.

Brilliant.

See it at UCI, Odeon