Review: ‘A Most Violent Year’

“A Most Violent Year” is a NYC-set crime drama, but not like the ones we all think of when we hear this phrase. Way less “Goodfellas” and “Donnie Brasco” and much more like the genre-inverting films of Steven Soderbergh, this is a film about a guy who is trying his best NOT to become a mobster, despite the fact that he is surrounded by them, does business with them, and even seemed to marry into it. There is a difference between the right path and the path that is “most right,” and our hero of this story seems to ignore the distinction between the two. Is he a moral businessman? Or is he just a gangster without a gun?

Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) owns Standard Oil and he is an up and comer in the industry, making headway into rival territories and building up his company into something he hopes will be massive and hugely successful. But he has a problem, and his problem is called New York City circa 1981. Corruption was rampant throughout the city, and his own industry was under investigation for their less than honorable practices. To make matters worse, Abel is dealing with the problem of his truck drivers getting beat up and his trucks hijacked for the thousands of dollars worth of fuel in them. So the union head wants to arm Abel’s drivers with guns for self-defense, but the last thing Abel needs is for one of his drivers to get involved in a shooting. And with impending indictments coming from the city district attorney’s office, his plans to take out a massive loan with his bank are thrown into jeopardy, which in turn puts him, his company and his family at risk of massive financial ruin. To say that the pressure is on for Abel Morales is an understatement.

And the whole time, Abel is trying to be what he considers an honorable man. He doesn’t count himself among the gangsters and organized crime guys around the city, instead telling himself that he is doing things the right way. But this is really just him lying to himself, because his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) handles the bookkeeping and with her family ties to organized crime and her background she seemingly has no problem with following “standard industry practices,” which means very illegal stuff like under reporting employee wages and tax fraud and other stuff like that. Abel knows this stuff is going on but he chooses to ignore it until absolutely necessary, and even then he just says that he needs to know “where they are exposed,” as if they are talking about ill fitting clothing and not highly illegal activities. It also helps to have his attorney (Albert Brooks) handling a lot of his business and insulating him from things that would make Abel second guess his actions and motives. So when Abel tells people that he runs an honest business, he actually seems to believe it, mostly because all of the dishonest stuff got handled by other people.

But still there is something oddly admirable about how Abel lives his life and runs his business. He dresses like he’s in the mafia and even talks to those people and does business with them, but he refuses to do so many different things, mostly like resort to violence. Even when he gets a good chance to inflict some harm on someone who actually deserves it, he doesn’t go all the way and instead changes his mind, opting to continue down the path that he considers “most right.” In this way, “A Most Violent Year” is a flipping of the mafia movie genre; instead of Henry Hill trying to get in, it is Abel trying to stay out. He deals with bankers and land owners and union bosses, people with their own shady tactics and dealings, but who like Abel see themselves as operating on the right side of the law. Yet while he sees himself as an honest businessman, we know the truth, the reality, because he can sit back and see it from a distance, we can see the totality of his actions and the way he lives his life and conducts business and we know he’s just the like rest of them, he’s just in denial about it.

“A Most Violent Year” is a slow burner, like a pot of simmering water, bubbling up, just on the verge of breaking into a roiling boil as the heat very slowly increases. This is the kind of movie with a deliberate pace that takes its time, it is not in any rush, but is still gripping in the unfolding of the events that happen. Each scene brings with it a new problem or headache for Abel, anything from minor inconveniences to just the worst shit that they could possibly think of at that time, and the pressure keeps building and building. Adding to this is a 30-day internal clock, as Abel and his wife are given a timetable to close a very important deal and that amount of time gets smaller and smaller, causing them to not necessarily panic but at least to sit up and take notice of their impending doom, either from financial collapse or legal ruin. Adding to this growing sense of dread is the very synth heavy, kind of droning score, very much a callback to the synth-y film scores of the late 70’s and 80’s, music that helps make a quiet scene hum with atmospheric doom, as we wonder whether Abel will even be able to pull it all together in time to make it out of his various messes with his family and business still intact.

This movie is made with a very classic sense of style, as the camera only moves when needed, and we get lots of beautiful, meticulous compositions, lots of wide shots and slow push-ins and simple set ups, with the mise en scene pushing the themes of this movie – lots of shadows and darkness, a New York City that seems to be under perpetual cloud cover, oppressive grey skies over Abel at almost all times, a muted color palette that seems to reflect Abel’s muted system of morals. It is a great movie to look at and luxuriate in, with a strong, distinct style that makes sense for this movie, and a story that is pretty compelling as it unfolds.

Really, I am not sure why “A Most Violent Year” isn’t getting more play with film critics and awards pundits and all of those folks, because this is certainly one of the better films of 2014 and serves as another strong entry from writer/director J.C. Chandor, who has emerged recently as one of our better filmmakers working today. Between this and “All is Lost,” I am ready for whatever this guy wants to make.