Movie Discussion: A Most Violent Year

Scott Hardie | September 20, 2015
The DVD extras were very illuminating about the origins of the film. J.C. Chandor advocates for non-violence and is involved in the Cure Violence movement, which seeks to treat violence like a medical epidemic. The movie seems made as part of this well-intentioned agenda. I'm on the fence about whether that made for a better film. It seems implausible to me that this guy could be so naive and so successful at the same time: With friends and enemies alike ripping him off, he should have gone out of business years earlier. Even as he awakens to the nature of the corruption and danger all around him, he still wants to play by the rules, and he still triumphs in the end? Stories exist to teach us morals, and this movie's moral is that violence is wrong, but how are we to absorb that lesson if the tale is so unbelieveable?

His wife seems far more reasonable, at least keeping a gun to protect her family. But why did she get an illegal unregistered firarm when she could have easily purchased a legitimate one, especially with the district attorney already scrutinizing them for any violation of the law? For that matter, why wouldn't she just keep the gun that she already picked up from the intruder?

Oscar Isaac is not terribly well known now, but after The Force Awakens and X-Men: Apocalypse come out, he's going to be a household name. I wonder if this movie might have made a bit more money if they had released it a year or two later.