‘A Most Violent Year’: Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain a combustible combo

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Even if you’ve never seen “The Godfather: Part III” or you’ve seen it and you wish you hadn’t, there’s a good chance you know the most famous line in the movie.

“Just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in!” bellows Al Pacino’s anguished Michael Corleone.

In J.C. Chandor’s striking and unforgettable “A Most Violent Year,” Oscar Isaac’s Abel Morales — with his dark eyes and hair, and his camel hair coat, and his coldly deliberate manner of speaking — almost seems to be channeling the “Godfather II” version of Michael Corleone at times.

But Abel’s struggle isn’t about getting out. Abel’s quest is to never get sucked in.

There was a lot of talk about “Inside Llewyn Davis” turning Oscar Isaac into a bona fide movie star, but it’s his work here in Chandor’s period-piece film noir crime drama that should solidify Isaac as the real deal.

It’s great work from Isaac. As simple and as complicated as that.

“A Most Violent Year” is set in the New York City of 1981, when there were more than 1,800 murders; hustlers, prostitutes, pickpockets and porn ruled Times Square; brutal crimes dominated the headlines, and the mob still ruled much of Brooklyn and Queens. There was even a garbage collectors’ strike, rendering the city grimier than ever.

Amidst this seedy backdrop, Abel is a successful but still almost insatiably hungry owner of a home heating oil company that is growing so fast he’s drawing a lot of unwanted attention from his competitors, who don’t adhere to Abel’s very particular code of ethics and values.

With his trusted attorney Andrew Walsh (Albert Brooks in one of those smallish dramatic roles where he’s so good you can’t imagine anyone else playing the role) by his side, Abel cuts a deal for an expansive waterfront shipping terminal that will give him a decided advantage on the very rivals who are already sending out hooligans to beat the holy heck out of his drivers and steal his trucks.

It’s a move equal part ambitious and suicidal, especially since Abel knows he’s in the crosshairs of a power-hungry district attorney (a stellar David Oyelowo, who plays Martin Luther King in “Selma”).

Abel is swimming with sharks — including his own wife, Anna (Jessica Chastain), who’s a femme fatale straight out of a 1940s movie, what with her perfect coif, her fang-like nails, her cleavage-baring outfits and her calculating moves. Anna comes from a Mafia family, and it’s clear she wasn’t sent to her room when the boys talked business around the dining room table. She knows her stuff.

Abel hates guns. Anna doesn’t. Abel thinks it’s possible to navigate those shark-infested waters without things getting bloody. Anna doesn’t.

“A Most Violent Year” is filled with choice moments and cinematic rarities, including that relationship between Abel and Anna. There’s a moment when she walks down a long corridor, and he just watches her, and the lust he feels is palpable. It’s the type of thing we see in movies all the time — but it’s almost always between a man and a woman who have yet to consummate. This is a married couple with children. Whatever other madness is going on in their lives, there’s still a burning sexual hunger between them.

Nearly every scene in “A Most Violent Year” is pitch perfect. Chandor the writer comes across as a big fan of David Mamet’s, and Chandor the director invokes stylistic touches reminiscent of Sidney Lumet, among others, but Chandor is no cover artist. Whether he’s framing the ideal establishing shot before segueing into tense, shadow-filled, interior confrontations, or staging an elaborate chase scene on the 59th Street Bridge, Chandor is a filmmaker with a deep palette.

This is just his third film. The first was “Margin Call” (2011), perhaps the smartest movie about the financial crisis of the late 2000s. Chandor followed that with “All Is Lost,” the one-man survival-at-sea tale starring Robert Redford. To say he’s three-for-three so far is an understatement.

Alessandro Nivola is chillingly effective as Peter Forente, a Mafia prince who lives in a mansion with more security measures than most high-end banks. Even when Abel reaches out to him, Forente feels honor-bound, in some twisted way, to warn Abel about doing business with people such as himself.

The invaluable Peter Gerety, who’s always so true to the part it feels as if he actually had the job held down by the character he’s playing, is spot-on as the union boss urging Abel to allow his drivers to arm and protect themselves.

Elyes Gabel gives a strong performance as Julian, the immigrant truck driver Abel tries to protect, even as Julian’s actions could destroy everything Abel has worked for.

Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain were classmates at Juilliard nearly two decades ago. This is the first time they’ve done a film together, and one can only hope it’s just the beginning. They’re brilliant.

Every time I think I know my favorite scene in “A Most Violent Year,” I think of another scene. It was the birthday party. No, it was the moment when Anna says to Abel, “You’re not going to like it when I get involved.” No, it was the scene where Abel walks in on a meeting of his top competitors, and makes an impassioned plea for them to change their ways.

No. It’s not any one scene. It’s the movie.

[s3r star=4/4]

A24 presents a film written and directed by J.C. Chandor. Running time: 125 minutes. Rated R (for language and some violence). Opens Friday at local theaters.

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