‘A Most Violent Year’ Review By: Kyle Pinaro

            It’s 1981. New York City. Abel (Oscar Isaac) is living well. He owns Standard Oil and driving all the other oil companies out of business. That is until somebody starts stealing his companies’ tankers filled with thousands of dollars worth of oil. Abel wants to seek the right way of handling things, the non-violent way, the legal way; but Abel’s wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) isn’t having it, and while all this happens the Assistant District Attorney (David Oyelowo) is preparing a case on Abel’s company to try to expose tax evasion, price fixing, as well as other crimes.

But to Abel it’s all very confusing; he doesn’t know where any of this is coming from and for that reason why it’s happening to him. Abel apparently doesn’t really know what happening within the inner workings of his company and for that his paranoia kicks in, mixed with a little bit of ignorance. J.C. Chandor does a great job as director and screenwriter, both equally impressive aspects of the film itself. The dialogue is rich and poignant and the actors themselves have a delivery that is far too good to be overlooked as each line of dialogue kept pulling me in and making me feel as if I knew these characters.

But, as a film whose ads portrayed it as a gritty violent crime film, it doesn’t live up to that standard, which isn’t a bad thing at all. As a matter of fact it’s the best thing for this film, considering that A Most Violent Year is oddly non-violent. The film is a mostly character driven plot as it portrays Abel just stuck in a series of significantly worse events than before, trying to passively resolve his issues while everybody around him encourages him to do the exact opposite. While the film is incredible it does have it’s weak spots, as they are minimal yet too big to be ignored. Many times throughout the film were there moments where a particular action didn’t make sense or there were scenes where my suspension of disbelief could no longer be suspended.

While these were only about 3 minutes combined throughout the film, it did kind of take me away from the believability factor of the story. Also, more scenes involving Abel’s home life and the effects of his choices on his family would have been the icing on the cake. Nonetheless nothing is necessarily perfect but A Most Violent Year sure does come pretty damn close.

It’s a slow moving film with an immense amount of pay off and a great ensemble. Isaac shines as Abel and is incredibly likable, and even as you’re watching the film you feel like you respect his character almost as if you know him. That’s the beauty of A Most Violent Year it feels relatable even when it isn’t.

A Most Violent Year: 4 ½ / 5

-Kyle Pinaro