Amazing. I actually want to watch it again and I think it will get better on repeat viewings. It's a slow burn of a film that definitely demands your full attention, but it's ultimately one of the most rewarding cinematic experiences of the year. There are quite a few incredibly intense moments - Abel's pursuit of one of his enemies through the streets and tunnels of New York and into the subway system is one of the best scenes of the year - and sensational performances across the board. Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain are both AMAZING and their scenes together are dynamite and easily the best part of the film. I'm glad both are rightfully in the awards conversation. Isaac's work is particularly soulful here - you immediately understand his character's convictions and his dedication to moving forward in his life. Chastain is unpredictable and feisty. Albert Brooks is also great as the family lawyer. On a technical level this movie is a stunner, from the gorgeous cinematography and production design that really evokes the time period to the tense and moody score. J.C. Chandor's direction is fantastic - he carefully puts every piece of this movie together and fully recreates this time in history, as well as putting his own unique spin on the search for the American Dream and the measures people will go to in order to attain it. This is easily one of the best films of the year. A

I 100% will be seeing this again theatrically (I watched a screener) as the visuals alone merit that and I really want to see the chase scene I mentioned on the big screen. Chastain and Isaac both should be in the conversation to WIN their respective categories this year at the Oscars. I know that Chastain is basically assured a nom but I do hope that Isaac manages to break his way into Best Actor. The movie should also be up for Cinematography, Score and Art Direction, as well as Best Picture, Screenplay and Director.

This was a huge surprise for me as I wasn't expecting much from it. Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain completely deserve to be nominated come Oscar time, I may even say that Chastain deserves a win. The direction, editing and cinematography are all flawless. It's a very, very well made film with fantastic performances. I also didn't think it dragged at all. One of the best of the year.

A

I thought it was very dull. I can handle a leisurely paced film if it keeps my interest but this was only sporadically interesting. The performances are good but not great. It's way overrated. I hope it doesn't get any major Oscar nominations.

5/10 ( C )

A Most Violent Year turns on a recognizable idea long popular in cinema and literature: the gangland as a metaphor for a capitalist society at its most competitive and voracious. Set in the early 1980s, the film focuses on Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac, sturdy and slightly sleepy), a self-forged, urbane man with an entrepreneurial spirit and an ambitious plan for his heating-oil firm. On the eve of a major property acquisition, he contends with numerous crises, including a series of roadside thefts from his rigs and a government investigation regarding his financial history. He wheels and deals to the best of his ability to stay afloat while also trying to maintain a certain delusional idea of himself as a righteous American Dreamer despite the often cruel and intimidating world he inhabits.

This is an easy film to admire in the abstract or from a distance. It has a talented cast, the most colorful member of which is Jessica Chastain as Abel's wife, a mob Lady Macbeth with hair dyed as blonde as her fingernails are long. Her various one-liners and cold-hard-bitch poses (including shooting a wounded deer while her husband hesitates and squirms) never coalesce into a profound character, but she is often a blast to observe in the moment. The film also features a clearly obsessed-over, so-old-school-as-to-be-film-school-nerdy aesthetic indebted to, among others, Dog Day Afternoon, The French Connection, and The Godfather. Every frame is fastidious and just so, from the smog-iced-over color palette to the plentiful period props. Sadly, A Most Violent Year is entombed by its style. It is a sumptuous, more-retro-than-thou bauble with no pulse and an unsatisfying end game (one put-upon character's entire contrived, gloomy arc exists so the film can include a shot of blood mixing with oil). It also has a pace so measured as to be frustrating and even stultifying. A third-act car and foot chase is a welcome inclusion and a late reminder the film is not entitled A Most Dowdily Bureaucratic Year. Overall, this is, for me, a major disappointment by writer and director J. C. Chandor, who previously made All Is Lost, one of my favorite films of the last ten years.

C

Mixed bag of reviews here from reviewers I trust. I guess i'll have to see then.

I did not buy Julian's tragic character arc, particularly his decisions in the final scenes.

So this was quite good. An old-fashioned, slow burn tale of morality and business. There are a few brief bursts of violence, but I liked that the movie keeps the notion of "a violent year" in the background. We get the air of it hanging in the air without it really showing on screen. Oscar Isaac is excellent and Jessica Chastain is also terrific despite her character being unevenly written. B+

I thought this was just ok.

It's fantastic. Issac and Chastain are at the top of the game in a slow-paced film that still keeps its momentum with a satisfying ending. Too bad neither were nominated for Oscars.

A Most Violent Year has a bunch of actors ACTING their hearts out, trying so very hard to snag that oscar nomination. There isn't much to it besides that though, and such a project can only hold my interest for so long. Very boring movie, but Jessica Chastain makes everything tolerable enough.

C