“A Most Violent Year”

Rated R for language and some violence.

The film “A Most Violent Year” is not this year’s most violent film. In fact, I have seen more violent scenes in an Elmer Fudd cartoon than this movie.  But, then critics don’t laud Elmer as they have the cast and plot of this dark morality tale.

It seems that 1981 was New York City’s most violent year (obviously in modern history) during this depressing time in history. And New York wasn’t exactly the most attractive or vibrant city in America. If the graffiti and crime didn’t depress the population enough, the snow certainly added a nasty pall upon one and all. One scene in the subway makes a triple body funeral a jolly event; but that is the point.  It was a time when doing business in the City of New York was a swamp of ethical ambiguity.

Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) is a Columbian immigrant (with an accent that would put most nearly the entire metropolis to shame).  He owns a heating oil business, usually a most mobbed up business. His wife Anna (played by Jessica Chastain), in fact, is the daughter of a small time gangster but he keeps clear of any temptation to use any of these connections to build his business. He loves his wife (no mistress) and his daughters. He is an honest man surrounded by slithering snakes and thugs.

He wants to buy the property next to his (owned by Hasidic Jews) and has 30 days to come up with 60 percent of the loan, 1.5 million. However, suddenly his trucks are being stolen (and his fuel drained) and his drivers are being beaten up, particularly a scarred and vulnerable rabbit named Julian (apparently another Columbian immigrant). It is essential to understand that Abel is a Hispanic mensch. When an ADA assigned to investigate and clean up the heating oil business in New York City targets him not particularly concerned that he is a victim of more than his fair share of grief, one can’t help but wonder if his character’s name should not have been Job rather than Abel.

The film can seem slow but it really works on you like a Russian novel and as likely to be turned into a Broadway musical. This is a character driven drama, the antithesis of an action film.

Jessica Chastain’s performance has attracted a great deal of attention from film critics. I am far more impressed with Oscar Isaac’s interpretation of an honorable man trapped in an impossible situation than I am with Ms. Chastain’s daughter of a Brooklyn gangster’s shtick down to her trashy nails that could slit the throat of a 18-inch neck goombah. Mr. Isaac got my attention in the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis.  This is an actor that can do brooding in his sleep.

This film is for folks who really like the dark and dreary school of dramatic turmoil and angst. We live in a time when too many people are all too sure of their moral superiority when they should worry about an eternity sucking in hellfire and brimstone.  It is refreshing to see a man struggling to find the “mostly right” path in a troubled world.  I very much appreciate a plot line that understands a world that is not about white-hat heroes and genocidal villains. When integrity is crystal clear and all motivations are saintly  I am compelled to throw a box of popcorn at the screen and punch a nun for good measure.

“A Most Violent Year” is for adults with a heady taste for intellectual quandary. It is the cinematic version of the New York Times crossword puzzle. By the way, I hate crossword puzzles but I appreciate this film. It made me think; it made me appreciate that actors can express inner turmoil with Sturm und Drang and violence can be internal and emotional. 

There is some violence in the movie but it is muted compared to most films these days.  The struggle is internal, not external.  There is more to this film than one would absorb if given a cursory look. It is a mature film deserving one’s full attention. It most certainly is not a diversion for the sake of entertainment; for a serious student of the cinema. It isn’t a date film.

 So please, understand that my respect for this film is based on the respect the producers have for my cultural tastes, deserved or not.

“A Most Violent Year” is a severe act of craftsmanship and I grant it a very, very somber three and a half bow ties out of five.