A Most Violent Year (2014)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Man this movie was boring from start to finish. Acting seemed decent but crap this thing was slow.

To me at least, this engrossing film is much more about an independent businessman facing huge hurdles in a (very) tough industry, than it is the crime drama that critics allude to. Indeed, its (mistitled) title, based on other reviews on this site, apparently attracted some violence-aficionados who were expecting a mob film with wise guys decapitating each other, and were thus sorely disappointed. I can't remember many (any?) Hollywood films where the central character is a businessman who is portrayed as honest, decent, wise, and with an intuitive knowledge of human nature, and that frankly makes the film interesting to me. Abel Morales (as portrayed by Oscar Isaac) is the businessman in the film. He's a well-spoken, self-controlled immigrant businessman who's doing reasonably well in the NYC heating oil business, but in the film he plans a major expansion of his capacity by purchasing a fuel oil terminal on the East River. He has 30 days to secure the financing for the acquisition but he's beset by either rivals or freelancers who hijack his fuel trucks and sell his oil, plus an ambitious Assistant DA who's investigating price-rigging and tax evasion in the heating oil business who seems to be (unfairly) targeting Morales. One thing leads to another, allowing his bank to drop his financing, and he's forced to locate other sources of funding in the few days he has left to close the deal. Maybe these business issues don't do anything for you, but the characterization of Morales and his desire to do the right thing made me root for him. His wife, the daughter of a mobster, urges him to fight violence with violence to which he refuses. He even throws her gun away that she purchased for protection. Yes, there's criminal activity in this film (e.g., the hijackings) but it's essentially about an honest man trying to stay on the right side of the law operating in a cut-throat business who has a major investment that will either make him or break him. Eight stars for a rare portrayal of a businessmen struggling to overcome all sorts of obstacles.

I think everyone has probably pointed out already that the title is misleading, particularly as this film would appear to be a gangster film. The plot sees someone making moves within the oil business and trying to keep his own moral sensibility while all the time surrounded by corruption and violence from others in the business; the title refers to the year the film is set – which happened to be the most violent year in the history of New York crime.Like many, this did mislead me somewhat, and perhaps this is why I did have some big reservations about the film. In truth the film is actually not a million miles away from the previous film from the same director – All is Lost. In that film a man finds himself all at sea, trying to survive in whatever ways he can come up with. In the same way this film sees Abel caught in a storm and trying to stay alive while also stay himself. Since this character is not wanting to be a gangster, this does mean the film is mostly men talking low with a sense of violence but mostly not. The very slow pace of the film combines with this to make it a little bit of work to go with it – and I am not entirely sure that the slow pace pays off as an approach.What helps it though is that the film is intriguingly written as it relates to the character at its core. Abel is an interesting conflict of aims and realities, and he is very well played by Isaac; an actor growing on me. He plays it subtly for the most part and is the engaging core of the film. Indeed it is a very actor-y film, as it gives good material to all the main cast (Chastain, Brooks, Oyelowo) although the narrative is not quite as compelling as it may have been delivered. Throughout it is professionally made, and Chandor holds the tone well. In the end it is the misleading suggestion of the title which hurts the film because if you go into it because you really loved 'All is Lost' then I imagine you will like this as it does a lot of the same things just as well, albeit differently.

. . . is the main take-away from A MOST VIOLENT YEAR. Even for folks who do not own a copy of BUSH CRIME FAMILY, which explains how Jeb Bush's grandpa--Prescott Bush--made World War Two possible by providing Hitler's Blitzkrieg with a crucial diesel fuel additive in the 1930s, the History of Oil is synonymous with the History of Violence, from 1880 to the Present. THERE WILL BE BLOOD, GIANT, and AMER!CAN SNIPER are just three of countless films documenting mayhem in the oil fields and in the Oil Wars. A MOST VIOLENT YEAR sets itself apart by focusing upon 18 deadly fuel oil truck hijackings, along with sundry kidnappings, beatings, and Acts of Terrorism which occurred around New York City in 1981. Oscar Isaacs plays "Abel," an adherent to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Non-violent Preachings. But Abel's no more able to defend himself against the Little Oil Industry thugs than millions of ordinary Americans have been in combating Big Oil's Fracking (which has brought coast-to-coast earthquakes into formerly quake-free zones, causing untold thousands of cracked home foundations and driveways, not to mention polluted drinking water aquifers). Like America itself, A MOST VIOLENT YEAR shows Abel being slowly roasted alive in a vat of boiling oil. It's the peaceful Abels of this world who are doomed to perish under Big OR Little Oil's Mark of Cain.