“I have never taken anything from anyone,” is one moral assertion American immigrant Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) makes in the face of three days of snowballing misfortune in J. C. Chandor’s agreeably hellish, pleasingly pulpy, often-beautiful third feature, “A Most Violent Year.” Abel married into mobster money, gaining a small heating-oil company from the father of his wife (Jessica Chastain). It’s winter 1981 in Brooklyn and Manhattan, ostensibly the most crime-ridden year in the history of the five boroughs. But taking or being taken is quickly Abel’s fate. Coming after his dissimilar “Margin Call” and “All Is Lost,” Chandor shows ambition and enterprise, in each film showing the kind of taut, proficient storytelling American movies could use more of. Chandor tips his hand toward the magnificent Manhattan melodramas of Sidney Lumet, and cinematographer Bradford Young (“Pariah,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” “Selma”) to “Prince of Darkness” Gordon Willis, but their accomplished collaboration isn’t derivative. Dense and darkly brooding, simmering, even, “A Most Violent Year” is rich with its own full measure of dramatic reward. And Isaac? He is to be watched. With Albert Brooks, terrific as always, as Abel’s put-upon lawyer. 125m. Widescreen. (Ray Pride)
“A Most Violent Year” is now playing at River East, Landmark Century and Evanston Century. A teaser trailer is below.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
Talking Screens, December 16-22, 2022: "All The Beauty and The Bloodshed" is One of the Year's Finest | "Bardo" is a Small Story Told on an… "Avatar: The Way of Water," "All The Beauty and The Bloodshed," "The Volcano: Rescue From Whakaari" and "Bardo." PLUS: Bresson's "Au Hasard Balthazar," Andersson's "About Endlessless"; FACETS' "Holiday Detour" series; Chicago filmmaker-in-residence Daniel Nearing's "Sister Carrie" with an orchestra at Siskel; "The Thirty-Ninth Christmas Sing-A-Long & Double Feature" at the Music Box and Music Box Of Horrors and Shudder pull…
