A Most Violent Year Blu-ray Review

• 15th May 2015

1981, New York. Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) is a businessman who literally days after making a win or lose property deal finds his business and future under threat from a team of hijackers who are literally ripping his drivers from the seats of their tankers and stealing trucks full of valuable fuel.

It seems this has been going on for some time, the people responsible for this remain a mystery and the law itself seems more interested in investigating his own company that they do in helping him remain a legitimate businessman.

With his frightened workforce and even his own wife (Jessica Chastain) demanding that violence be fought with violence – Abel descends into his own personal one sided nightmare as all bets are against him.

This is simply put, Isaac’s movie. We have had an overdose of his presence since the Coen Brothers chose him to headline their Inside Llewyn Davis. A Most Violent year offers the actor the chance to branch out further as the businessman striving to keep his business as straight as he can make it as well as a success. The backdrop of 1981 New York being the main problem for our protagonist. Can a legitimate businessman survive in a market and in a time that is fuelled itself by violence and corruption and gang warfare.

Jessica Chastain also put in a terrific performance as his wife and partner who perhaps walks a slightly different line or morality than her husband.

Director J C Chandor (Margin Call, All Is Lost) hits a hatrick with this film. Chandor is adept at picking subject matters and writing logical and compelling characters and stories that are connected to the real world we live in.

Right now for the future Chandor needs to fix nothing about the films he makes. He simply needs

to keep making them.

Chandor and various of his crew partners provide an insightful commentary track and there are various featurettes that delve behind the scenes that are also worth checking out.

 

 

 

Steven Hurst