Most Violent

A pair from the macho files:

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR (B+) - Aiming for greatness, J.C. Chandor and his star, Oscar Isaac, can't quite pull it off, shouldering too much of the load themselves and somehow missing an undefinable layer or two that makes movies like "The Godfather" enduring classics.

Isaac, solid in "Inside Llewyn Davis" and the more recent "Two Faces of January," is the workhorse in this 1981 period piece, starring as Abel Morales, a driven business man who vows to play things straight as he seeks to grow his heating-oil business in New York's cut-throat market. His trucks are getting robbed and his drivers beat up, but he won't approve a plan to let them carry guns. His wife, Anna (a venomous Jessica Chastain), comes from a mob family, but Abel won't go there either. In her eyes, he's too virtuous to be a real man navigating a chaotic world. She has no problem with guns.

Isaac channels Al Pacino from "Godfather II," but Chastain reverses the gender roles, as if Kay had called the shots in Coppola's masterpiece. Chastain is swathed in Armani, exuding power in a cream-colored overcoat. Isaac never has a hair out of place.

Abel has put a downpayment on a prime piece of real estate that will establish him as a major player in the heating-oil game, but he has 30 days to come up with a couple million more; otherwise, the Hasidics he cut the deal with will rip up the contract and keep his money. Meantime, he's on shaky ground with his lender because of an investigation targeting his company by the local DA (David Oyelowo, more effective here than as MLK in "Selma"). Chandor (who wowed with his debut, "Margin Call," but disappointed with the follow-up, "All Is Lost") spends too much time setting this up but then hits high gear in the second half with Abel's race against time and with a side-plot involving one of his desperate drivers, Julian (a nicely jangly Elyes Gabel), who picks the worst time to fight back against the oil pirates.

Chandor steers his ship home, but the climax is too perfunctory, making it feel a little like an afterthought. He finely conjures the feel of the era, a time when New York still felt like it was falling apart. And his Job-like lead character is memorable. But the whole production is lacking a certain kind of dimension. We get bookended scenes between Abel and a rival in a barbershop, an iconic cinematic touchstone that signals epic violence and doom. But Abel holds back. Chandor holds back.

And maybe that's Chandor's long game here. Perhaps his message is that those bloody mob movies are just that -- movies. Real life isn't so pulpy. Sometimes a decent guy struggling to stay straight doesn't morph into a superhero, doesn't grow devil horns, doesn't massacre the bad guys. Maybe he just muddles through each day and tries his best to meet whatever challenges life throws at him.

STARRED UP (B-minus) - Unrelentingly violent. Pure savagery. You talk about lacking a bit of nuance. This British prison film has one speed, and it wears a viewer down.

Director David Mackenzie has two fine films under his belt, "Young Adam" and "Perfect Sense," both propelled by Ewan McGregor. Here, Mackenzie leans on Jack O'Connell ("Unbroken") as the bucking bronco of a young man (with the portentous name Eric Love), a 19-year-old who has been transferred from a juvenile facility to a maximum-security adult facility (i.e., he's been "starred up"). He immediately establishes himself as a force to be reckoned with -- by both his fellow inmates and by the prison guards.

The hook here, and it's a big one, is that the prison also warehouses Eric's father, Neville (Aussie Ben Mendelsohn), who abandoned him when he was a 5-year-old. Neville swaggers about the prison, but he struggles to control his son.

Eric is a feral animal with trust issues, but he softens under the group therapy sessions run by Oliver Baumer (Rupert Friend from "Homeland"). These group interactions feel authentic, which is no surprise considering that the screenplay was written by Jonathan Asser, based on his own similar experiences.

However, much of the rest of the action is a chore. I had to watch it with subtitles because of the mix of dialect, slang and general mumbling. The plot feels muddy. The father-son dynamic is undercooked. At times this is powerful. But the payoff isn't worth the slog.