It seems like Hollywood delivers us at least one big-name gangster film a year. With A Most Violent Year, writer/director J.C. Chandor has made one of the most un-gangster gangster films in film history. Unlike other crime movies, A Most Violent Year is about a man who doesn’t want to be a gangster despite everything and everyone around trying to lead him into that life. It’s a refreshing take on the genre, and one that borrows liberally from Coppola and Scorsese without being a pale imitation.
Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac, looking like he walked straight out of a Scorsese movie) owns a New York City heating oil business that he is hoping to expand by purchasing a new parcel of property that will allow him to significantly upgrade his importing and storage capabilities. However, this is 1981 New York — one of the most crime-ridden periods in the city’s history — and Abel’s trucks are being stolen by armed thugs at an alarming rate. He knows at least one of the business owners who make up his competition is responsible, but he doesn’t know who the culprit is. The situation is getting worse at the same time that Abel is required to pay for his new property and shortly after he purchases a new ostentatious home for his family, including his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain), who is also involved in the oil business. Furthermore, a crusading district attorney (David Oyelowo) is trying to make a name for himself by cleaning up the oil business and has targeted Abel. As troubles come at Abel from all sides and drain both Abel’s finances and reputation, he is faced with having to make decisions that might make him the criminal he has tried all his life not to be.
Impressively, Abel is the total opposite of Isaac’s ragamuffin vagabond from Inside Llewyn Davis. Though Abel insists he is not a gangster, he certainly looks the part with his perfectly coiffed hair and sharp double-breasted suits — he’s way overdressed for a guy who owns a heating oil business. A shirt and tie would do fine, but that’s clearly not his style. Abel is a man who wants the world and everything in it like all the great movie gangsters, except Abel isn’t willing to do what a gangster does to get it. Yet having power and growing it is his only nature. When his lawyer Andrew Walsh (a well-cast Albert Brooks) asks Abel why he even bothers owning the business at all when it is so cutthroat, Abel responds, “I don’t understand what you mean.” He can’t imagine not being in power.
Anna is a fascinating character because she is strong-willed and ruthless, and if Abel did not restrain her impulses A Most Violent Year would be a very different movie. As the hotheaded one of the pair, I wondered how different the film would have been if it were told from her perspective. She always seems to be raising her voice or making threats, while in contrast Isaac’s Abel is more of an unstated character like Michael Coreleone. When he raises his voice you know he means it.
Chandor is a remarkable filmmaker — Margin Call managed to say something new in the tired stockbroker genre, and All Is Lost is magnificent in its ability to visually tell a story with only one character. A Most Violent Year is an engaging story, and seeing the depiction of New York from 35 years ago is always welcome (it also adds to the story since characters can’t just use cell phones to fix problems). However, the film features one of the most deus ex machina conclusions I have seen in a recent film. It renders much of the preceding hour hollow drama, which is annoying as an audience member. I’m not sure why Chandor made that decision, but surely there was a better method to resolve the film’s story than a solution that comes out of nowhere. It ties the ribbon too tight at the ending, and we aren’t left with the sense that Abel’s troubles will continue, as if a magic wand was waved to make all better.
A Most Violent Year has an extraordinary build, is visually stunning, and features excellent performances. If the film could’ve sustained its success in the final 15 minutes, it would have been a contender for best movie of the year.
RATING: Though the ending diffuses its excellence, A Most Violent Year is still a strong crime film with great performances by Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain (7.5/10).
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