A MOST VIOLENT YEAR, like NIGHTCRAWLER, is a men-and-their-work film that strives for a Michael Mann type of greatness and falls short. J.C. Chandor throws you right into the action without a compass (as Mann often does) and expects you to find your way, or at least sit tight until the story tells you what you need to know. But Chandor simply isnt as gifted as Mann at threading backstory and exposition into his plots -- even resorting to an As you know... speech 40 minutes in. As a result, I felt thoroughly disoriented for the first half of the film, so much so that it took me 20 minutes just to conclude that this wasnt a gangster film at all, but rather a film about people who behave like gangsters. So determined is Chandor to avoid any hint of cliche that he bleaches his movie of all excitement. For a film with three shootings, two pistol-whippings, and a major car-vs.-truck chase, its shockingly uninvolving. Theres none of Manns propulsive kick to either the dramatic or the action scenes. Everything is tamped-down and underplayed to a fault. And Oscar Isaac -- channeling Al Pacino in GODFATHER 2 the way Daniel Day Lewis channeled John Hustons Noah Cross in THERE WILL BE BLOOD -- is so low-key hes practically somnambulent. Even the 1981 setting barely registers. (Who knew the 80s were so _brown_?) Other than a couple of scenes with graffiti-covered subway cars and a CG World Trade Center, visually the film could be taking place today -- which I guess is what they were after. As with NIGHTCRAWLER, there is a really interesting story here, but it is reduced, rather than elevated, by the storytelling. Still, in this day and age, you could do worse with a couple of Michael Mann-influenced films (and in the case of NIGHTCRAWLER, Schrader/Scorcese as well) -- at least until BLACKHAT drops January 16th.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 22:42:24 +0000
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