8. A Most Violent Year
How far do you go to chase your American Dream while all around you is being torn asunder in the most violent year in the history of the greatest city in the world? For Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis), an immigrant who has worked his hands to the bone to become the city’s premium purveyor of oil, he will go as far as being decent and upstanding will take him. Along with his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain, Interstellar), they have worked their way to the top, but despite Abel’s best intentions of keeping his business clean, Anna knows what it takes to be the best, and when Abel seeks to purchase a bay-side oil refinery, he soon learns the true worth of chasing his dream, as the police led by David Oyelowo (Selma) and his bitter rivals close in.
Director J.C. Chandor has built himself quite a healthy reputation over the last few years with his two debut efforts: Margin Call was a taut, at times breathless look at the excess of Wall Street; while All Is Lost was even better, a minimal but wonderful story of a sailor stranded at sea with a superb (and criminally overlooked) performance of Robert Redford. Third time out, you can see the confidence acclaim brings, running through the veins of A Most Violent Year in arguably the director’s most ambitious film yet. Cool, assured and riveting, Chandor’s third-leg of his early tripod of work is his shining glory…
Read the rest of Scott J. Davis’ ★ ★ ★ ★ review here.
Originally published July 13, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
