A Most Violent Year (2014)

09 Saturday Jan 2016

Tags

Albert Brooks, Ambition, Crime, David Oyelowo, Drama, Gangsters, J.C. Chandor, Jessica Chastain, Oscar Isaac, Review, Theft, Thriller

D: J.C. Chandor / 125m

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, Albert Brooks, Elyes Gabel, Christopher Abbott, Matthew Maher, Alessandro Nivola, Peter Gerety, Catalina Sandino Moreno

New York, 1981. In the midst of one of the most violent years in the city’s history, local businessman Abel Morales (Isaac) is looking to expand his fuel distribution company with the acquisition of a bay-front storage facility, and to do it all legally and above board. He’s supported by his wife, Anna (Chastain), but the deal he’s making for the facility is dependent on his being able to make the final payment. With his trucks being hijacked on a regular basis, and with his drivers afraid to make deliveries, Abel struggles to make sense of who’s behind it all.

Matters aren’t made any better by his having to contend with an investigation into his company by District Attorney Lawrence (Oyelowo). Lawrence is convinced that Abel’s business must be crooked in some way, despite his protestations. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, one of his drivers, Julian (Gabel), is involved in a shootout with robbers during an attempted hijacking. Julian goes on the run, and Abel has to track him down and convince him to give himself up. But Julian refuses and remains at large.

Meanwhile, the due date for the final payment is fast approaching and Abel has to negotiate loans from as many people and places as he can, but he’s still short. When he learns that one of his trucks is in the process of being hijacked he pursues the robbers, eventually catching one of them. To his surprise he finds that the hijackings aren’t all that they seemed, though it does lead to a discovery about one of his competitors that he uses to his financial advantage. But with time running out he’s forced to approach Mafia-affiliated Peter Forente (Nivola); Forente agrees to loan Abel the money he needs but the terms are not very favourable. But when Abel tells Anna about the deal he’s made, she reveals something she’s done which has an impact on everything.

It’s been said on many previous occasions by many other people that the title A Most Violent Year is misleading. The movie contains little actual violence, despite including a bridge shootout and Abel chasing down one of the robbers, and there’s none of the tense showdowns we’ve come to associate with gangster movies. Instead, writer/director Chandor has chosen to focus on how difficult it is to operate in a criminal environment and remain honest. To look at Abel, and to see how close he’s getting to securing his company’s future, you do expect temptation to be placed in his way, and you expect him to struggle with each temptation, but what Chandor does instead is replace temptations with a series of setbacks. Abel’s a good man, solid and trustworthy through and through, and it’s how he maintains his innate honesty when faced with these setbacks – when he could be excused for taking a short cut or looking the other way for a moment – that defines him.

As played by Isaac, Abel is a strong, determined individual who always seems a little out of his depth, despite his commitment. It’s his wife, Anna, played with spirited guile by Chastain, who is really the driving force and overseer of the business’s fortunes, and so we have a Lady Macbeth for the Eighties, as she cajoles and prompts and on occasion, bullies her husband into doing what’s needed. It’s a subtly constructed conceit – behind every successful man is an even more ambitious woman – but in the hands of Chandor and Chastain, the movie is all the more intelligent and engrossing when Anna is forced to take centre stage.

The period setting is entirely apt, with the cold, wintry conditions of the time reflecting purposefully on the narrative, as Abel’s fuel distribution business, mostly gas, is seen as a saviour not only for him, but for the city and its battle with the elements (Isaac is seen throughout in a big mustard-coloured coat that looks as warming as it does heavy). The movie wants Abel to succeed and so do we, and as he navigates the treacherous waters of “low” finance, each time he doesn’t quite achieve what he sets out to get, it has the effect of impressing on the viewer that he too will be fighting the elements if he fails completely. Bradford Young’s cinematography is a highlight, the wet, shiny, chilly streets of New York given a light sheen of glamour that makes for some impressive shots throughout the movie.

By focusing on the trials and tribulations of someone seeking to firmly establish themselves in their chosen area of commerce, and by keeping the stakes firmly in the foreground, Chandor achieves a directness of style and narrative that keeps the viewer intrigued as to the outcome, and committed to following Abel’s story to its conclusion. It may not be a movie that features a swift pace and dazzlingly executed photography, but its measured approach to the material allows the viewer to become embroiled in the machinations and leverages that Abel becomes involved in. And if there aren’t any standout action beats or revenge style melodramatics then it’s entirely to the benefit of the movie, and stands as a testament to the quality of Chandor’s writing and directing.

Rating: 8/10 – a modest yet effective crime drama, A Most Violent Year is yet another example of just how good writer/director J.C. Chandor is, and why he’s one of the best movie makers working today; perceptive, extremely well acted, and lacking only in its inclusion of the DA subplot (which doesn’t add anything), this is the kind of movie that shouldput audiences in mind of the kind of thrillers that were being made in the early Seventies: assured, classy, and with a lot to say.

Murder of a Cat (2014)

29 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Blythe Danner, Drama, Ford's Megastore, Fran Kranz, Gillian Greene, Greg Kinn, J.K. Simmons, Mouser, Murder, Nikki Reed, Review, Theft, Thriller

D: Gillian Greene / 101m

Cast: Fran Kranz, Nikki Reed, J.K. Simmons, Greg Kinnear, Blythe Danner, Leo Nam, Brian Turk, Aidan Andrews

Clinton Moisey (Kranz) is still smarting after the closure of his comic book store, thanks to the arrival of a large supermarket called Ford’s. He lives with his mother, Edie (Danner) and his pet cat Mouser. Recently, Mouser has been disappearing for long periods and doesn’t seem his old self. When Clinton takes Mouser to the vet’s, it’s all put down to his advanced age. Clinton isn’t so sure, but things take a darker turn the next morning when he wakes to find Mouser lying dead in the road outside his home, and with a bolt from a crossbow sticking out of him.

Clinton calls the police. Sheriff Hoyle (Simmons) arrives but decides there’s not much he can do except file a report and hope for the best. Clinton is outraged by this, and decides to find out who killed Mouser by himself. A local boy (Andrews) tells him that he saw Mouser just after he was hit by the bolt, and it wasn’t outside Clinton’s home. When the boy shows him the spot where he saw Mouser, Clinton is shocked to see a lost pet poster that shows a picture of Mouser, but under another name, and with an address on it. He finds the address and encounters Greta (Reed). It transpires that her home was where Mouser was disappearing off to. After some initial suspicion about each other’s motives, she and Clinton agree to try and find out who killed Mouser.

Greta recognises the bolt as one that would have been sold at Ford’s. She used to work there until recently, but doesn’t say why she left. At Ford’s they discover that the brand of crossbow used is only sold in that one store, but when the store’s owner, Al Ford (Kinnear), refuses to show them details of any purchases, Clinton causes a scene and is thrown out. Later, he sneaks into the store’s warehouse and finds that the shelf where the crossbows are kept is empty; he also learns that one of the employees, Yi Kim (Nam) is using the crossbow boxes to remove computer equipment from the store and sell it to a fence.

Things become further complicated when Clinton misreads Greta’s growing interest in him, and Sheriff Hoyle is revealed to be dating his mother. When he tells the sheriff about Yi Kim’s activities, he manages to persuade Hoyle to go to Kim’s house and search it. They don’t find anything, but Clinton swipes Yi’s phone. On it he finds several photos that prove what Yi is doing, but when he takes this evidence to Al Ford, he finds the store owner depressed over his impending divorce, and certain that the fence Yi is selling to is actually Greta…

On the face of it, Murder of a Cat is a quirky, noir-tinged murder mystery with an unlikely victim, and an even more unlikely “detective”. Clinton Moisey is an adolescent trapped in an adult’s body, an older, less hyper Fred Figglehorn perhaps, but with the same selfish, socially awkward behaviour and lack of empathy towards others. When he implores Sheriff Hoyle to find Mouser’s murder, his outrage at Hoyle’s disinterest is evident but also a little unnerving. It’s the intensity that makes Clinton seem like a crazy person, and while the movie spends quite a lot of time supporting his search for justice, where the narrative takes him actually robs his cause of any emotional investment made by the viewer. As the thefts from Ford’s take priority over the murder investigation, so Clinton becomes less intense (if still determined), and his shaggy mop top gives way to a more coiffured hairstyle, changing both his look and his attitude.

By providing Clinton with a makeover, the movie ultimately robs him of the demanding, aggressive, petulant behaviour that makes him stand out in the first place. In short, he mellows, and while this may have seemed like a great idea for a character arc, it actually means the opposite: Clinton becomes less interesting as the movie goes on, and other characters – Ford, in particular – take over. It’s a strange process to watch, as a movie’s main character, though still driving the narrative forward, ends up being a bit of a bystander in his own story. Thanks to the script by Robert Snow and Christian Magalhaes, the movie never overcomes this approach and often stalls as Clinton struggles to make the next connection in the mystery. It’s as if they didn’t trust his dogged determination – a trait all the great detectives share – to fully engage the audience, and were uncertain if his way of behaving would invoke any sympathy.

The movie is further undone by some trite and unconvincing dialogue, some of which sounds so awkward that the cast do well in dealing with it all. Kinnear is saddled with some of the stiffest lines in recent memory – “I am a phony, kid. You were right about that. My whole life’s been an act” is one of the more memorable challenges he has to overcome, but there are plenty more where that came from, and though as mentioned above the cast do their best, it’s still too noticeable for comfort.

Of the cast, Kranz is a committed Clinton, absurdly childish and arrogant but lacking the support from the script and from Greene to make Clinton more likeable. Reed is efficient but used mostly to fill in the blanks in the story (she has a lot of exposition to deal with), while Simmons and Danner tread water with characters who come perilously close to being stereotypes. It’s Kinnear who makes the most impact though, taking an unevenly detailed character and making Ford the most interesting role by the movie’s end. It’s a small triumph that boosts Murder of a Cat in its last half hour, and without it, would have made the movie end on a whimper.

This is Greene’s first feature, but even though she’s the wife of Sam Raimi, it’s clear she hasn’t learnt too much from him, directing the majority of scenes with a flat, often bland approach that hurts the movie tonally and waters down both the drama and the often haphazard comedy elements, making some parts of the movie feel undeveloped. It’s a shame as there is the germ of a really good idea here, but sadly, it could – and should – have been a whole lot better.

Rating: 5/10 – a missed opportunity for everyone concerned, and the kind of movie that proves endlessly frustrating to watch, Murder of a Cat loses ground quickly and never recovers; it aims for quirky and bizarre but in reality is actually tedious and too rudimentary to work effectively throughout.