A Most Violent Year (film)

A Most Violent Year (Directed by J.C. Chandor)/2014

A Most Violent Year is set in New York during the 1980s: crime and corruption are high and it is a difficult time to engage in honest business. Abel Morales, played by Oscar Isaac, is the owner of Standard Heating Oil Co, an up-and-coming heating oil company. The company is routinely hijacked by competing businesses, and we learn that there is a mafia element involved.

The movie operates on two levels. We witness the drama of Morales trying to figure out who is threatening his livelihood. His drivers are held up at gun-point and thrown out of the fuel trucks and engage in lengthy chases. People show up to his family’s house at night to threaten them and leave a gun outside as a warning. There is a bit of mystery around who is performing these acts. We also learn that his wife is the daughter of a previous mobster and at times puts pressure on him to go down the less righteous path and fight back with violence.

What this movie is really about is the fact that Morales is not willing to engage in corrupt business practices no matter how bad things get. For him, it is the way we conduct our lives that is most important, and it is not worth living unethically in order to get the things that we want. He is the Kantian ethicist: what we do is what is important, not what happens as a result.  An alternative way to determine what is morally good is to base it on the outcome: this is the utilitarian view; for example, the kind of behavior that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people is the morally right behavior.

There is an irony to Morales’ strong moral stance. His unwillingness to arm his drivers or seek the help of his wife’s family puts his truck drivers at risk. They are routinely beaten and their lives are put at risk. Moreover, he seems willing to sacrifice them in the name of his sense of moral duty. We are left wondering whether Morales is doing what is morally right, and if so, why so many people are getting hurt in the process.

Morales has a strong sense of right and wrong, but his rigidity lacks a human element: it fails to be flexible enough to help people and reduce harm when it matters. What is the point of sticking to a moral code if so many people get hurt in the process? This is the question that A Most Violent Year asks of the viewer but does not answer firmly either way. Apart from the interesting philosophical question I found this movie fairly average. It was good throughout but never great. Nothing about it was particularly memorable of interesting.

Oscar Isaacs plays Morales well, but after recently watching Show Me a Hero, I felt I was watching the same person. Overall, this is a movie worth watching but will likely not leave one thinking about it for very long afterwards.