A Most Violent Year

In a corrupt world of rascals and thugs, cheats and chiselers, how is the honest man to make it? J.C. Chandor's stunning third film, the period drama A Most Violent Year, asks that very grown-up question and answers it with dispassionate pragmatism: A man does what he has to do.

And what Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) has to do is raise a lot of money in a short amount of time by any means necessary. In the film's opening scenes, Abel, an otter-sleek immigrant in a camel-hair coat who has risen from poverty to own a Long Island City heating oil distribution business, puts down a cash deposit to buy an old factory adjacent to his warehouse. The purchase will give him river access and multiply his storage capacity. It will give his company an edge in a highly competitive business; it promises to transform his family's life. All in all, it appears to be a prudent business decision.

Except for the terms. He's buying the parcel from some Hasidim, who were only persuaded to sell by the very advantageous terms Abel has offered. The 40 percent he's put down represents most of his life savings. If he doesn't deliver the remaining 60 percent -- in cash -- within 30 days the property will revert to the old owners, who will also keep his deposit. Still, Abel seems to have the situation wired. He has a reliable banker and, just before the deal goes down, his avuncular realist lawyer (an impressively straight Albert Brooks) tells him he has a "good feeling" about the transaction.

That's not the first tipoff that things will not go smoothly for Abel. The opening scenes evoke the police dramas of Sidney Lumet with their closing trunks and briefcases full of money. Something in cinematographer Bradford Young's (Pariah, Ain't Them Bodies Saints) ash-white skies and service revolver blues register as storm warnings. Ambient radio sounds suggest the flying apart of civilization -- we hear news of stabbings, rapes and murders. The year is 1981, by statistic and legend the most crime-ridden and dangerous time in New York's history (though actually the murder rate was down a tic from 1980, when there were on average between five and six murders reported in the city every day).

And the heating oil business in the city is both cutthroat and lucrative enough to attract the attention of mobsters. Abel has to deal with Teamsters and their rules. Somebody is hijacking the trucks, and the union is pushing for Abel to allow his drivers to carry sidearms for their protection. He thinks it's riskier for his business, and for his drivers, who might decide to shoot it out with bandits on a crowded expressway. Abel worries about his liability; going forward, he wants everything clean and aboveboard.

That's Abel; he's always looking forward. What's behind him is not important. We don't know that much about his past, only that he bought his company from a mobster and he married the mobster's daughter, Anna (Jessica Chastain). She's his bookkeeper and his partner, but he doesn't want her too involved in his fundraising efforts. In part, it's because he doesn't want his Lady MacBeth applying extralegal methods to their problems, but maybe it's more because he wants to get out of the shadow of her father. Abel wants his own legacy. And he believes if he is careful he can navigate the treachery and secure financial freedom and power for himself and his family.

What he doesn't anticipate is that the district attorney (David Oyelowo) is finishing up a multiyear investigation into the heating oil business. Like everyone else, Abel has cut some corners, but he never expected to be facing indictment.

All the performances are in key, but a couple stand out: Elyes Gabel plays a truck driver who obviously worships Abel, even as he ultimately fails him; Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) is mesmerizing in a single Spanish-language scene; Alessandro Nivola shows up as a genial second-generation mafioso and business rival who offers Abel some common-sense advice. Some might feel that Chastain has too little to do here, but she makes what might have been the movie's only stock character brim with danger and loyalty.

Multilayered and morally nuanced, A Most Violent Year might be best described as a crime drama about the sort of character who is a peripheral figure in most crime dramas. Abel is neither cop nor crook; he's just a compromised man with problems to solve. In a way he's like a highly competent version of Artie Bucco, the restaurant owner in The Sopranos, or Michael Corleone before the fall. (It's probably not coincidental that Isaac is groomed and dressed in a manner that suggests mid-period Al Pacino.)

Still, it's not difficult to imagine modern audiences being bored or even lost because -- though Chandor includes two genuinely tense chase scenes and a couple of spasms of ugly violence -- he isn't inclined to action movie tropes. Or for that matter easy exposition. We don't explicitly understand why Abel is so taciturn and proud, we have to work to suss him out. Chandor doesn't flash back to his childhood, he doesn't put pretty words in his mouth. As he did in Inside Llewyn Davis, Isaac works as much with pauses and deflection as he does with dialogue. He's a grown-up Tony Montana with a moral compass. There's a fierce pride shining in his eyes, but this American dreamer is determined to color within the lines.

He wants to get over, but he also wants to sleep at night.

MovieStyle on 01/30/2015