The world is fraught with questions. What created it? Why is it so ugly and beautiful at the same time? How can things like irony exist? How can a thriller be entitled The End of Violence? Of those four questions, I can answer only one, and I can answer it simply. A thriller can be called The End of Violence if it isn't actually a thriller.

Though containing the psychological tension of a thriller, and plot elements that would make you believe it’s a thriller, it ends up being a character drama instead. It shows how much we loathe violence, how our culture hypes on it, and how we forget ourselves while buried in suspicion.

The artistically bold film opens with the question "Define Violence.", which we are thoroughly unable to do throughout the film. We can only begin to understand its nature, but not its form. A man who controls violence's public nature, hotshot Hollywood producer Mike Max (Bill Pullman), is at the center of a bizarre plot involving a secret surveillance system around Los Angeles, watching it in an attempt to usher in The end of violence, but ending up causing more violence in the process. Overseeing the technical aspects of the project is Ray Bearing (Gabriel Byrne), a technology genius who wants a simple life. Unhappily married to Mike Max is Paige Stocklard (Andie MacDowell), a woman trapped in her unhappy marriage yearning for experiencing life.

When an attempt is made on Mike Max's life, however, everything changes.
The movie is a contrast, a study in ambiguity which is the nature of violence itself. It is a haunting, spectral image of a violent world that is still with us, and it will leave you wondering how to define violence, and waiting, wanting, to see The End of Violence.





Recommended: Yes

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