Review: A Most Violent Year (2014)

J.C. Chandor’s third directorial effort is an incredibly slow and plodding film that, while having the seeds of what could have been either an incredibly dynamic character study or a tense thriller, in the end achieves neither, being held together mostly by Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain’s immersive performances.

Now, that’s not to say that Chandor made a sloppy film. In fact, it’s far from that. It’s a very pristine, calculated affair, and therein lies the problem. Chandor seems to make everything too pristine, too calculated, and therefore creates a film with an almost glacial pace. The film is also hampered by choosing such a specific date and location, that of 1981 New York City. In what was the most violent year on record, Chandor does little to take advantage of this prime environment for a crime drama. Instead, the violence plaguing the city forms a background that is usually only touched on in radio news reports, and that Isaac’s character’s oil trucks are repeatedly being robbed. However, the film seems to almost rabidly avert showing much violence, or really raising tension, instead ever so slowly moving forward.

In the aspect of character, I can’t tell if the film wants me to sympathize or look down on Oscar Isaac, who really shines here. He’s very intense and truly carries the film on his shoulders, but the screenplay seems to leave too much of his motivations mysterious. Why is he so fanatically adverse to relenting to his mafia princess wife’s demands to accept help from her criminal father? What makes him so ambitious? We know he is Latino, but that’s about it. I know nothing of his backstory, or how he came into this position of wealth. Therefore, I can’t understand why he wants to cling to it so bad beyond the standard “I worked hard to get here and I’m not going to let it slip through my fingers” motivation.

Chastain herself is equally good, as the brash and manipulative wife. She really shines in the film, and has an element of controlling dominance about her. The scenes between her and Isaac are the best in the film, and seem to be the ones where the film truly finds itself in playing off their differing philosophers and having them debate quite viciously in one particular scene.

The rest of the cast is equally good, as this film is filled with top notch performances, but not many of them get developed. We get hints of larger developments and motivations, but for the most part, the film keeps it at a minimum, which frustrates me.

I had really truly hoped this film would be similar to, say, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, which has a similar slow pace, yet is an incredibly arresting character piece. This film tries that, but ends up being too slow, and not providing enough information about the characters to truly engage me.

I’m giving it 2 stars, with huge props towards the cast, who really help keep the film together, but in the end, the film is still far too slow and plodding, and therefore takes away from the tension and drama it could have easily had.

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