A Most Violent Year

Despite its title, A Most Violent Year is surprisingly nonviolent, with just one death and few brutal scenes. Not that things don’t ever get intense (rated R for language and some violence). In one scene, tension rises so hot that you can almost hear a sizzle—and all that was needed was a straightening of cuffs and a soft, firm command: “Stop.” But that’s what makes this film so captivating and terrific: It doesn’t need to resort to fists or guns to heighten drama.

Written and directed by J.C. Chandor (the son of an investment banker, his previous films such as Margin Call have recurring themes on capitalism), A Most Violent Year is set in New York during the winter of 1981, statistically one of the city’s most violent years with the highest rates of reported robberies and murders. The film portrays a city dripping in social and physical decay: Subway trains screech by flashing graffiti, harsh lights reflect off dusty snow, and shadows flicker under wary eyes.

A self-made magnate of a swift-expanding heating oil company, Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) is a stubbornly upright man struggling to keep afloat in a world not unlike the tribal wars in The Godfather series. He hates guns, detests sleazy business practices, and never ever raises his voice or fist—but it’s getting increasingly impossible to stay clean in this corrupt industry.

Abel’s business is leaking in all directions: Mysterious armed thugs keep hijacking his trucks, stealing thousands of dollars’ worth of product to sell to Abel’s competitors. One of Abel’s truck drivers, Julian (Elyes Gabel), ends up in the hospital with a broken jaw and limp. Meanwhile, an overzealous assistant defense attorney (David Oyelowo) is preparing charges of corruption and fraud that are damaging his reputation.

Every attack dares Abel to retaliate, and a lot is at stake: Abel has just moved his family into a swanky suburban mansion. He’s also handed a hefty deposit to buy coveted real estate from a law-skirting family of Hasidic Jews, and he’s scrambling for a bank loan to finalize the contract. If all goes according to plan, he will gain formidable economic and political power. But he could also lose everything—his wealth, his status, his family—in an instant.

It’s difficult to keep your eyes away from Abel, whom Isaac plays with pristine and brilliant gravity. There’s something about the way he carries himself and positions his facial muscles that makes him mesmerizing. This is a man who knows that image is power, and everything about him—from his tightly coiffed wavy hair and soft-spoken polite manners, to his exquisite camel hair coat and gold cuff links—suggests self-assurance and class.

In bright contrast, his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) is the sharp-nailed daughter of a gangster who sold Abel his company. Anna doesn’t mind playing with fire, and she snorts and sneers when Abel insists on taking the high road. Next to her brooding husband, Anna appears to be the more masculine and ruthless half of the couple—but in reality, it’s Abel who’s the silently dominant figure. Sure he’s no gangster, but he doesn’t seem to mind associating with sleazy people. Underneath that strict honor code is a cold-calculating, hard-nosed businessman who doesn’t tolerate human weakness and mediocrity.

He may share the same name as the biblical Abel, mankind’s first martyr, but this Abel is no innocent victim. A Most Violent Year presents a hero who ostentatiously chooses “the path that is most right,” but that doesn’t make him any less violent—much like human morality without God.