Rating of
3/4
Good movie. Bad title. No wonder some hated it.
Indyfreak - wrote on 07/19/15
'A Most Violent Year' has gotten alot of praise and also alot of criticism over its style and storytelling. The title is misleading sure enough and as far as crime dramas go it's more drama than related to crime. The cinematography and recreation of 1980s New York looks fantastic. Oscar Isaac gives a strong performance as Abel Morales, an intelligent businessman whose heating oil company becomes backed into a corner because of mysterious truck hijackings against the backdrop of crime-ridden NYC. His wife Anna (Chastain) comes from a mob family and urges Abel to retaliate just as brutally to protect his business and more importantly his own family. Jessica Chastain is also great in her role. She behaves more like one of those shallow wives from a Bravo reality show at the drop of a hat yet you buy that she manages to care about her husband. Oscar Isaac's character remains interesting since he repeatedly tries to back away from the typical response to violence in gangster movies like this. He truly desires to be a respectable and law-abiding citizen though the climate of the times has other ideas in mind apparently. Going back to how 'A Most Violent Year' often ignores the tropes of the gangster film genre, I guess it's most right to call it the 'anti-gangster' film that people have alternatively acclaimed and accused it as being.
