A Most Violent Year

First Hit:  The acting, especially by Jessica Chastain, is superb.

This story takes place in the 1960’s, in New York and in the highly competitive home heating oil business. Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) has built his business with hard work and in a short period of time.

One struggle is that his drivers hurt when his trucks are getting hijacked by someone unknown to him. He’s also trying to buy a piece of riverfront property to give him a leg up on his competitors. His growth and the whole sleaziness of the industry is being monitored by a politically hungry DA name Lawrence (David Oyelowo).

Morales' wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) has a background in the mob and it shows with her attitude, actions and strength of character. She occasionally alludes to her ties to the family with threats to Abel that she wants to bring in the family in to resolve the hijacking as well as other things. The exchanges between Abel and Anna are wonderful and charged.

The scenes of Abel teaching how to sell their service is powerfully priceless. The addition of Albert Brooks as Abel’s lawyer Andrew Walsh was an amazing selection because he brings intense pointed guidance to both Abel and the film.

Isaac is very strong and he exudes drive to make it all work. Chastain is sublime, she is so strong that you know she is the foundation that makes Abel’s business (and the film) work. Oyelowo is good as the DA trying to “clean up” this industry but also seeing where his future bread could be buttered. Brooks is phenomenal. J.C. Chandor wrote a very strong script capturing the time and industry well. His direction was clear and concise and he made his script work for him.

Overall:  I’m glad the film wasn’t as violent as the title but the intensity was surely represented.

All Is Lost

First Hit:  Interesting, strong acting, and by the next day I still had a lot of questions.

This film is amazing in that there is only one actor and there is virtually no dialog. Yes the actor is the strong Robert Redford, but we are forced to dig past Redford the person, and see a character which we have to determine, for ourselves, who he is and why is he in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

One of the clues we have is the prologue where the voice over has Redford (as the character) reading the note he puts into a jar and tosses it into the water near the end of the film. The other clue is the name of the boat, the “Virginia Jean”. Is the name of the boat, his wife’s name? Mother’s name? Daughter’s name? Home state? We don’t know and never learn. Did he commit a crime and is hiding from the law? Did he lose his wife and finding solitude by being alone? Did he make it big and decided retirement was to just be the master of his own ship, not having to rely on anyone else?

What we do know, he’s been sailing for a while because the interior of the boat looks well lived in and he is a competent sailor. We engage this unnamed sailor in his boat, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, when it collides with a sinking metal shipping container.

The collision puts a major hole in his boat and it begins to take on water. The scenes following this crash give the audience a view of this man. He’s pragmatic and doesn’t get flustered. He’s a thinking man and he’s older because he can’t and doesn’t move too fast. He knows what he’s doing because he follows what he needs to do as a sailor. As each new disappointing development comes and goes, we continue to see him make survival moves.

One question that came to me while watching was; why was he experiencing these failures? But because we know nothing about him, it is all speculation.

Redford is outstanding in this role. He gives you everything in his actions, expressions, and in his eyes. This role must have been very challenging and Redford shows he’s up to the challenge. J.C. Chandor wrote and directed this film. Many of the shots were amazing and beautiful. I’m still not sure what he wanted to say in this film.

Overall:  Visually strong but with so many questions, I was left wondering.

Margin Call

First Hit: This smart educational film opens the door to understanding the mortgage crisis of the late 2000’s.

What this film does is give the audience a human flavor as to why the mortgage crisis happened.

Human not in the context of the mortgage holders, but the guys in a Wall Street house who created bundling of the subprime mortgage packages and sold them.

In this Wall Street firm, recent losses have created firings. One of the fired, Eric Dale (played by Stanley Tucci), has been working on some numbers which concern him. When he leaves he gives a thumb drive to a young new Analyst, Peter Sullivan (played by Zachary Quinto).

Sullivan works for Will Emerson (played by Paul Bettany), who works for Sam Rogers (played by Kevin Spacey). Will is smart and has about 10 years with the firm and when Sullivan finishes the analysis that Dale started, he immediately sees that the company is overexposed and is exposed for more than their capital worth.

Like the mortgages of many, they are underwater. This brings in the heavy weights. Rogers calls Jared Cohen (played by Simon Baker) who calls the CEO John Tuld (played by Jeremy Irons). A 2:00 AM meeting between all these players and lawyers, the meeting starts with Sullivan explaining what he discovered.

The Head of Risk Sarah Robertson (played by Demi Moore) indicates that they tried to tell Tuld this could happen but Tuld indicates that this is now water under the bridge. What can they do to save the company now? Tuld decides to sell all of their positions at a loss, even though they know that doing this will destroy the market for mortgages, their relationships with all other brokerage companies they work with, and maybe destroy the company.

However, by leading the charge to sell this bad debt they will lose less than the others. To do this they know what they are doing and that is where the morality of their decision comes into question.

Tucci is great as one of the guys who complies with the end decision, all for money. Spacey is wonderful as the head of sales who motivates the crew for the last selling spree, he does it for the money as well. Quinto is sublime as the smart analyst. Irons is absolutely dead on as a ruthless player. Baker is very good as the guy who didn’t listen enough and is mostly responsible for the company’s plight. Moore is OK as the woman who pushed for a change but was unconvincing enough. Bettany is very good as the guy who thinks he knows it all but really relies on the smarts of others. J.C. Chandor wrote and directed this film which was intelligent, educational, well scripted, and provided excitement and interest.

Overall: This was a wonderful film to see and provided enough of a layman’s language explanation to shine light on the financial mess we’re now in.