By staggering coincidence after seeing 12 YEARS A SLAVE which documented life as a slave in 19th Century America the next film I saw was A MOST VIOLENT YEAR which chronicles life as immigrant in 20th Century America . I say staggering coincidence but 12 YEARS is a true story where A MOST VIOLENT YEAR is a fictional drama but they're both gloomy films that sees literal outsiders as protagonists in the dark side of America

The setting is New York City 1981 and the title comes from the fact 1981 was a peak year for crime in NYC . New York has a certain mystique for outsiders , probably down to the fact that many of the more distinctive and downbeat film makers such as Lumet and Scorsese have set their films there ? There is the perception that as soon as you get off at a bus stop in New York the first person you're going to meet is a murderer , a rapist , a mugger or some deranged vigilante to wants to cleanse the streets like a rain by torturing and executing criminal scum . The NYPD are useless at catching criminals down to the fact that the only people they arrest are prostitutes wearing feather boas .

That's not to say A MOST VIOLENT YEAR is a vigilante movie . It's a dark crime drama where the emphasis is on drama . Emphasis on dark too because what happens is characters stand around in dark rooms speaking gritty dialogue . No doubt this is deliberate on the part of director JC Chandor who has made a film that technically looks like it was made in 1981 . You could imagine this starring Robet DeNiro and Robert Duvall in the last days of the New Hollywood era . It's not brilliant but it's an engaging enough film with a couple of unexpected plot turns