A Most Violent Year (2014)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on November 29, 2014 @ tonymacklin.net.

A Most Violent Year is the American Dream in winter.

Long ago the American Dream lost its spirituality and turned into the American Success Story.

In A Most Violent Year, set in 1981, Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) is trying to hold on to the Dream. He knows that he has to compromise, but he wants to do "the right thing."

Lotsa luck. He's in the business world in New York City. He's an immigrant outsider, who started as a truck driver for a home fuel company, married the boss' daughter Anna (Jessica Chastain), bought the company, and is aspiring to expand.

After making a down payment, Abel has to come up with the full amount to buy crucial waterfront property from Hasidic Jews. He has only a short time limit in which to do so. Trying to raise the money becomes a formidable, soul-testing ordeal.

Abel and Anna and their two young daughters live in a palatial home - but it's not a "fortress" like the home of his major competitor in the home fuel business. The other man is part-gangster.

Anna's father was mob connected, and she has some street smarts, as does Abel's knowing attorney (Albert Brooks). But Abel is adamant about trying to avoid the encroachments of corruption. He is committed to doing business with the least dirty strings.

Abel's drivers are being beaten and thrown from their trucks. One of his new, young salesmen is assaulted. The union boss wants to arm his drivers. It's a potential war, fraught with distress and danger.

Also complicating Abel's quest is the threat of his company being charged by the D.A.'s office for bending and breaking the rules. Abel is under severe duress.

Abel has to try to raise money almost any way he can, but he also tries to remain true to not crossing a line. How much does he have to give? What will it cost him?

J.C. Chandor wrote and directed A Most Violent Year - a relevant but unmemorable title. Chandor has made a film that seems more personal than commercial. It's a worthy follow-up to Margin Call (2011) and All Is Lost (2013).

But A Most Violent Year is not mainstream; it's more downstream. It goes against the current. It is dingy and bleak. The action is limited, although there's a rip-roaring car chase, when Abel pursues one of his pilfered trucks. There's also a fierce shootout on a bridge crowded with traffic.

But weapons are stowed in the bushes.

A Most Violent Year is not most violent. The title does not make it so.

The dreary look of the film, although evocatively relevant, may be off-putting for audiences. How do you sell this film? A Most Violent Year is original and thought-provoking. You have to think. Whoa, is that marketable?

Ironically, Chandor may have been fortunate in his casting difficulty. After eight months of working with Chandor on the screenplay, Javier Bardem pulled out of the lead role.

He was replaced by Oscar Isaac. Suddenly Abel became dapper.

Oscar Isaac makes it a different picture. Isaac's image in A Most Violent Year almost unavoidably reminds us of Michael Corleone.

In a way, A Most Violent Year is the return of Michael Corleone, but this time he's able to cling to his honor. Abel doesn't have to sacrifice his humanity because of "family."

Oscar Isaac, with his low-boil will and intensity, is excellent - as he was earlier this year in The Two Faces of January - a very good film that deserves more viewership than it's gotten.

As Hossein Amini did in The Two Faces of January, Chandor artfully uses dualities. Abel, the successful immigrant, is juxtaposed with Julian (Elyes Gabel), who desperately tries to succeed but lacks the character and will to do so, no matter how hard he tries.

Abel has a younger brother Elias (Pico Alexander), but he is not Cain. He seems decent. There are two major oil adversaries, two government figures, and Anna has two different side - one hidden.

The cast is quite proficient. Besides Isaac, Jessica Chastain is artful as the Brooklyn-raised wife, both elegant and volatile. Gabel, who stars as the cool leader in tv's Scorpion, plays a very different character in the film - Julian is weak and lost. Albert Brooks is quietly effective as the lawyer, and Jerry Adler has a strong presence as the land-mogul.

A Most Violent Year can be seen as a penetrating metaphor for making a movie. How do you raise money? How do you keep your values, which are under constant assault by others?

How does the personal filmmaker's vision survive against those who have no vision?

J.C., keep the Dream of filmmakers alive.

Keep it alive.

© 2000-2023 Tony Macklin