Review: A Most Violent Year - Packs a Punch

A Most Violent Year  - auteur auteur

Directed and written by:  J.C. Chandor

Starring: Oscar Isaacs, Jessica Chastain, Albert Brooks
125 minutes   Rated  MA15+

Focus for a minute, concentrate and remember the following words:  Oscar Isaacs will be the next big thing in American movies. You read it here first!

The title of the film comes from 1981 in New York considered as (yep) the most violent year there, muggings, gang violence etc. at their height. Oscar Isaacs plays an ambitious but decent, if ambitious Columbian immigrant fighting to protect his heating - oil business and his family from financial and competitor pressures.  He has a great love and respect for his family and the friends in not just his company but those who might be rivals in the oil business, they are after all immigrants also mostly and simply making a living. How do you rise in a business though without bending towards the encroaching influence of the Mob as their control grows?

J C Chandor directed and wrote this fine film showing us the age of the film auteur is alive and well. I didn’t see his previous film ‘All is Lost’ but did see his other film ‘Margin Call’. I thought the story of the making the film and its eventual production was infinitely more interesting than the film itself (look it up on the net). I found it too talky and much of the talkiness (?) was incomprehensible to this black duck. He has won me back with Violent Year though.

A Most Violent Year's visual style is detailed and sharp with a great rhythm that almost sings to the audience to complement the beautiful cinematography of Bradford Young. The pre-Giuliani New York looks bleak and run down thanks to Detroit today standing in for many shots. The framing and sweep of some shots is breathtaking but never detracts from what’s going on but forms part of it. Chandor often favours shooting from behind the characters when they are talking which is an interesting touch. When you imagine a conversation you ‘see’ it from your POV looking ‘at’ the other person rather than the back of their head so this really does shake up the POV conventions. There is a sense of listening in rather than looking at the dialogue. It works for me.

The story is exciting and well told, a little reminiscent of that other terrific film ‘The Drop’ but resolves itself quite differently (and ironically a lot less violently).

Oscar is sublime and riveting in the role of Abel (pronounced annoyingly as Ah-Bell) with a more than equal performance of Jessica Chastain as his wife and the almost unrecognisable Albert Brooks practically perfect as Andrew Walsh.

This is a masterful piece of filmmaking, beautifully directed and expertly acted with a strong script. It is far from a violent film and the title comes from history rather than much reference in the movie itself – maybe a bit odd on reflection. Then again violence lies in strange places and forms so perhaps a business that is your heartbeat being threatened and a good man having to make moral decisions with the immoral are all a type of violence.

This is in many ways a ‘quiet’ film, no bam bam (or even bang bang) about it. It has a story and strong characters and just gets on with it, lets the narrative drive it and very stylishly (oh those suits Oscar wears)lets us sit back for 100 minutes and enjoy.

Find your way to this very satisfying example of fine film-making.

4 ½ out of 5