Review: A Most Violent Year
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
A shadow-flecked style that might be called mid-'70s masterwork.
City Paper grade: B
You don't need to decide whether J.C. Chandor's A Most Violent Year is a masterpiece: The movie is happy to tell you itself. Like James Gray, Chandor shoots in a shadow-flecked style that might be called mid-'70s masterwork, but he doesn't invest it with his own particular understanding of the mode. In spite of cinematographer Bradford Young's ace Gordon Willis impression, the movie feels as safe as its ambitious heating-oil businessman hero (Oscar Isaac) is reckless. (That preciousness extends to the title, which comes from the fact that 1981, when the movie was set, was the most violent year in New York City's history. The indefinite article adds a touch of the crooked pinky.) That said, A Most Violent Year is plenty enjoyable in more modest ways, as a master-riff rather than a masterpiece. Isaac has his Pacino down pat, and the evocation of the then-undesirable island of Manhattan mixes the proper degrees of disgust and nostalgia. The most canny inversion is envisioning Jessica Chastain, Isaac's Chanel-draped wife, as the Sonny to his Michael Corleone, rather than his Kay. The daughter of a bona fide gangster, she's a loaded gun waiting to go off, practically flicking her cigarette ash in detective David Oyelowo's face as he searches their house for cooked books and drawling, "This was very disrespectful." It's the little touches rather than the drive towards big statements that make Most Violent worth watching. At times you feel you've been here before, but it's never a trial to go back.
