Review of A Most Violent Year (2014) by Jeffrw — 06 Jan 2015

This film is a visual delight for people who fondly remember the New York-based movies of the 1970's and early 80's -- "French Connection" comes to mind. In the end, though, the story is too weak to make a great film. The film's protagonist, Abel Morales, runs a heating oil company. He wants to buy a derelict oil container port on the East River and refurbish it so he can import more oil at a lower price. This is an eminently sensible, legal, and unexciting business goal. The writer-director J. C. Chandor wants to make a thriller about corruption and venality in the heating oil business of 1980s NYC, but it's all so vague it's hard to get worked up about people engaged in a fundamentally worthwhile business: warming homes in winter. In the end Morales' wife saves the day with a deus ex machina: she has been "skimming" money off the company's books into a rainy day fund -- money that they can now use to buy the container port. Abel is horrified at this accounting trickery. Except, how is it a problem that a company saves money to achieve a legitimate business goal? Maybe there's some kind of tax issue. Who knows, the film never follows up on the issue and anyway in the very next scene Abel tells his wife "You know what, let's use that cash." So much for moral dilemma.

Great style, limited substance.