A MOST VIOLENT YEAR

J.C. Chandor has quietly become one of the best filmmakers working today, with MARGIN CALL, ALL IS LOST, TRIPLE FRONTIER and A MOST VIOLENT YEAR, perhaps his least-seen, most-underrated film (not by critics, who loved it, but by the general public). Have you seen this movie? It is, in some ways, to the gangster film what UNFORGIVEN is to the western, a deconstruction of the foundational tropes of the genre. Oscar Isaac IS early Al Pacino, a conclusion widely-found in the critical response to the film, while Jessica Chastain provides a strong counterpart to him as the real killer in the family, his wife. This is a top-notch film that got lost in the shuffle because of its obscure period heating-oil concept, and cerebral nature. It's a sin against cinema if you missed this movie. This episode is a solo podcast, pre-recorded before the birth of my son (!), where I dug deep into the research and unearthed some fascinating material about this movie.