In 1997, John Wagner and Vince Locke published their superb graphic novel A History of Violence: it was the story of an apparently regular guy, a small town Michigan cafe owner, whose unexpectedly accomplished defence of his family during an attempted robbery hints at a dark past which eventually turns out to involve mob entanglements. In 2005, David Cronenberg adapted the novel into the splendid Viggo Mortensen vehicle of the same name, which – Aragorn aside – may represent Mortensen’s finest hour. Now, this new Tamil version has broken several box office records and, at two hours 40 minutes runtime, has plenty of scope to expand on its source material – especially in the 18-certificate “uncut” version which has just entered cinemas.
The film opens with the small town of Theog in the snowbound western Himalayas which is under attack by a feisty CGI hyena that has managed to get into the local school playground. One man steps forward: local cafe owner Parthiban (mononymic star Vijay), and handily bests the slavering beast. The hyena shenanigans, however, do not replace but merely precede the badass cafe robbery triumph.
