A Most Violent Year

The struggle for survival is at the heart of director JC Chandor's movies - a bank during the financial meltdown in Margin Call; Robert Redford's stranded yachtsman in All Is Lost - and this seductive slow-burner is no different. Set in 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in New York's history, it follows ice-cool immigrant entrepreneur Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) as he attempts to seal the deal that will make him a fortune. However, with only a month to clinch it, Morales's dreams of expanding his heating-oil business are threatened by disparate forces - a criminal investigation; random attacks on his trucks; vacillating bank managers; and a volatile, no-nonsense wife (Jessica Chastain). This gripping drama recalls The Long Good Friday - also set in the get-rich-quick years of the early 80s - but unlike Bob Hoskins's brutal gang boss, Morales is an honest, nice guy "taking the path most right". Following his fabulous turn in Inside Llewyn Davis, Isaac gives another magnetic performance - like a young Al Pacino in looks and simmering intensity - while Chastain sinks her teeth into the juicy role of his hard-boiled Brooklyn spouse. It's a tense, subtly evocative Big Apple tale that could see Chandor take over Sidney Lumet's mantle as the quintessential New York director.