A proud, self-made foreign born business owner (Oscaar Isaacs) finds his crucial upcoming business deal thwarted by a series of truck hijackings, a government investigation into his books, and a loyal but calculating wife (Jessica Chastain) who remains insistent on the issue of retaliation. A Most Violent Year is gritty movie making from writer/director J.C. Chandor who adopts an enriched, spectacular color palette of films of a bygone era while telling a story that great urban filmmakers of the 1970s would have felt at home with but, like Chandor's other films (Margin Call, All is Lost) the slow burn style employed is alternately potent and dull. Isaacs is strong in a role where he perhaps channels too much of Pacinco, Chastain also is forceful in a somewhat diminished role, and Albert Brooks has a nice turn playing Isaacs' attorney.
*** out of ****
