A Most Violent Year is a riveting drama even though I can’t tell you what it’s about, or even what it actually is. (What’s new?) Set in New York City in 1981, against the improbable background that is the heating oil business (it’s sexier than you’d think), this isn’t quite a gangster film and it isn’t quite a thriller and it isn’t quite a morality play and it isn’t quite an exploration of the American Dream and it isn’t one of those parables about the evils of capitalism either. This is discombobulating, initially. We are used to the familiarity of well-defined genres. ‘Where is this going?’ you will keep asking yourself, whereas your best bet is simply to go with it, while admiring the coats. I will even stick my neck out and say there has never been a better film for coats than this.
Written and directed by J.C. Chandor (Margin Call) with a title referring to the fact that 1981 was New York’s most statistically violent year on record, this stars Oscar Isaac, an insanely charismatic actor who also, happily, happens to be rather hot.
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