A Most Violent Year

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 ****

All is Lost

Following a collision on his sailboat with a shipping container in the middle of the Indian Ocean, a stranded elderly sailor (Robert Redford) must contend with violent weather and use his resourcefulness to make his way back to land. For his second feature following Margin Call, All is Lost is an admirable and almost experimental project for writer/director J.C. Chandor and also an excellent and seemingly arduous vehicle for Redford, who is the only credited cast member and still commanding as ever at the age of 77. I think I liked the basic idea behind the film better than the execution as certain stretches, especially in the first half, tended to drag and the audience is given very little about the main character, perhaps in an attempt to avoid hackneyed, survivor movie cliches. Chandor utilizes some visual poetry quite well in the concluding passages and again Redford delivers a moving, authoritative performance.

Margin Call

A Wall Street investment firm is cleaning house and when one of the axed, a research analyst, is stepping onto the elevator with his box of personal belongings, he hands a jump drive to a talented underling and tells him to be careful. Working late into the evening, the junior analyst puts the final pieces of his ex-boss's puzzle together and realizes that the firm's business model will imminently crash. He calls in his superiors, thus beginning an all night session of dealings among sharks deciding who will get tossed to the wolves and how they will fleece their customers to save their own bankrolls. "Margin Call" is the debut film from writer director J.C. Chandor and serves as a microcosm of the start of the 2008 financial crisis and the ruthless and selfish tactics taken by those involved. The film contains a marvelous cast playing characters devoid of humanity, or swiftly on their way to losing it. I really liked the work of Zachary Quinto playing the junior analyst who has a background in rocket science who works on Wall Street because the pay is better. Kevin Spacey is excellent as well, again playing a corporate type, but not the arrogant and calculated one we would expect. Paul Bettany and Stanley Tucci are fine as senior analysts who possibly regret their career choices and Jeremy Irons and especially Simon Baker are great as callous higher ups. I found "Margin Call" to be underwritten and too obvious, particularly in an absurd speech by Tucci where he lauds his previous profession or when Bettany exclaims, "Fuck normal people!" in another. Thinking on this film, "The Ides of March" came to mind, another knockout cast in a film dealing with a relevant topic and a lackluster script. I began to wonder, where should the line between a good film and not be drawn when this is the case? Here the cast sells it.