Deborah Ross

A Most Violent Year, review: mesmerising performances – and coats

New York’s heating oil business is sexier than you’d think - especially with Oscar Isaac at the helm

A Most Violent Year is a riveting drama even though I can’t tell you what it’s about, or even what it actually is. (What’s new?) Set in New York City in 1981, against the improbable background that is the heating oil business (it’s sexier than you’d think), this isn’t quite a gangster film and it isn’t quite a thriller and it isn’t quite a morality play and it isn’t quite an exploration of the American Dream and it isn’t one of those parables about the evils of capitalism either. This is discombobulating, initially. We are used to the familiarity of well-defined genres. ‘Where is this going?’ you will keep asking yourself, whereas your best bet is simply to go with it, while admiring the coats. I will even stick my neck out and say there has never been a better film for coats than this.

Written and directed by J.C. Chandor (Margin Call) with a title referring to the fact that 1981 was New York’s most statistically violent year on record, this stars Oscar Isaac, an insanely charismatic actor who also, happily, happens to be rather hot. (Bottomless brown eyes; thick dark hair; a commanding presence even when doing nothing.) He plays Abel Morales, a first generation Columbian immigrant who started in the heating oil business as a truck driver and now owns the company. His coat is camel, beautifully cut, possibly cashmere, or at least a cashmere and wool mix. (I can’t know for sure without copping a feel; oh, I wish!)

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A Most Violent Year with a most beautiful view Photo: A24

Morales is an ambitious businessman, with plans, but is under pressure. Someone is hijacking his delivery trucks and beating up his drivers. The district attorney (David Oyelowo) is about to indict him for fraud.

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