This movie did an annoying little bait-and-switch. It promises an interesting gangster movie in the trailer, but is really just a character piece. That is not to say it isn't worth seeing, however. The acting performances by Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastaine are quite vibrant and entertaining and turn a mediocre story into something a little more.
The time is 1981 in New York City, a time when New York was at its most dangerous. An ambitious immigrant, Abel Morales (Isaac) is trying to protect his heating oil business and his family against very cutthroat competitors. The rub is that he is actually an honest broker in a cesspool of corruption and violence all around him. The movie opens where he is closing on a deal for an oil depot that will give him a leg up over his competitors. He has gone deeply in debt to make a big expansion. Unfortunately, there has been a spate of robberies of his truck from unknown people who are also assaulting his drivers. On top of that, he is the target of an ambitious DA (David Oyelowa) who is trying to root out corruption in the heating oil business. It doesn't help that Morales' wife, Anna (Chastaine), has a father and brother who are prominent figures in the underworld. In short order, his financiers walk away from him, the attacks against his business and family intensify, and the law keeps harassing him. All the while, he desperately tries to keep his business practices on the straight and narrow, against the advice of all those closet to him.
The trailers, as I stated earlier, promised this would be a gangster-style flick, but the movie isn't like that at all. I think the ad campaign does the movie a disservice by essentially lying about the content. That said, it also gets butts in the seats by intriguing you to see it. But the problem, or asset actually, is that the movie is actually pretty good, but very unexciting. It feels like a real story about the mundane aspects of real life, albeit under extraordinary circumstances. This is really a morality tale, with Morales being our Aesop. He is a truly honest man in dishonest times. He is an embodiment of the American Dream, but without the schmaltzy clichés that usually go with such stories. We always hear about the plucky little guy who does good, but we never really talk about the real struggles they have to face when going up against very established interests. But the problem is that for the most part, the story is pretty straightforward and not very interesting. The reason I rated it so high is that the acting transcends the material above itself. It's not bombastic, but entirely believable. It is almost a master's class in thespian prowess and is quite good. But ultimately, is not enough to save the story from a somewhat dull arc. The two leads are the propelling force in the movie, and boy, are they compelling. It also helps that there is not a bad performance in the whole cast. So see it for the acting and lower your expectations on thrills and you will probably like it.
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