Review of A Most Violent Year (2014) by Lasttimeisaw — 14 May 2015

If we presumably equates “violent” to “death”, we are destined to be mislead by J.C. Chandor’s third feature, A MOST VIOLENT YEAR, as we follow our poker-faced protagonist Abel Morales (Isaac), who has experienced a tough year with his oil company business in NYC 1981, negotiate his way with unscrupulous business competitors, a stalwart district DA Lawrence (Oyelowo), we assume in any certain moment he would start a killing spree in the Godfather style.

This never happens, since the dogma of Abel’s action is that he will never do anything to jeopardise his business, which means he will never act like a gangster, he is not a felon (as he tells Lawrence in the coda), although Chandor manifestly imbues his crime-tale with a solemn layout and vintage colour pattern under the heavy influence of Francis Ford Coppola’s gangster school, not to mention Isaac is obviously channelling Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone but in a no-violence policy.