More brooding than brutal, "A Most Violent Year" finds Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac), the upwardly mobile owner of a heating-oil business, in a time of difficulty. Some of the trouble is atmospheric. It’s 1981, and New York City is in a state of decay that looks, in the burnished tints of movie hindsight, almost picturesque. Subway cars blossom with graffiti; the radio news wearily tallies each day’s shootings and stabbings; crime and corruption hang in the winter air like smog.

‘A MOST VIOLENT YEAR’ Rated: R Opens Friday At Kahala 8

J.C. Chandor, the writer and director of this pulpy, meaty, altogether terrific new film, and Bradford Young, its supremely talented director of photography, succeed in giving this beat-up version of the city both historical credibility and expressive power. The light is harsh, the shadows are dense, and forces of chaos seem to gather just outside the frame, their presence signaled by Alex Ebert’s anxious musical score. In the course of "A Most Violent Year," there is an occasional gunshot, and some blood is shed, but the violence alluded to in the film’s title is largely a matter of mood rather than action — of whispers, not noise. We can’t understand Abel, a quiet, calm man whose good manners seem to sit atop a deep reservoir of fury, without a grasp of his environment, even if its governing logic is mysterious.

The New York heating-oil business is depicted as an unglamorous but lucrative trade with its own tribal rules and customs, ruled by a small group of families whose members divide territories and settle disputes according to Mafia-like principles. Abel’s company is expanding, but not without significant growing pains. As he prepares to close on a coveted piece of commercial real estate and move his family into a fortresslike suburban mansion, he is menaced from every direction. His trucks are hijacked by armed thugs, and one of his drivers (Elyes Gabel) is in particular danger. Abel’s salesmen are not safe as they go from door to door. An assistant district attorney (David Oyelowo) is preparing indictments.

"It looks very bad," says Abel’s lawyer, a skillful worrier played by Albert Brooks, American cinema’s greatest fatalist.

Amid all these threats, Abel’s wife, Anna (Jessica Chastain), whose father used to own the company, wonders if her husband has the wherewithal to protect her and their three young daughters. Abel, rarely raising his voice or losing his composure, takes ostentatious pride in his honest, reasonable way of doing business. He doesn’t like guns or cheating or anything that would make him look like a gangster. Anna, a gangster’s daughter, takes a more traditional approach, which can make her appear to be the tougher and more pragmatic half of the couple.

Appearances can be deceiving, though. Not that there is any doubting Anna’s resolve. It is clear that she can be ruthless in defense of her family’s interests, but she is also limited by the patriarchal codes of her milieu. Her role is to offer support and an occasional nudge, but unlike most crime movies, which treat wives as static, marginal figures, "A Most Violent Year" is interested in the dynamic of Abel and Anna’s marriage, which unites, sometimes uneasily, the imperatives of business and the demands of love.

But maybe Abel is not guilty of anything more serious than arrogance. He is named after the Old Testament’s first innocent victim, and as his torments increase he might be taken as the latest cinematic incarnation of Job.

The intricacy of this movie’s plot reflects the complexity of its protagonist, who is a fascinating skein of ambiguities and contradictions brought forcefully to life by Isaac, an actor who has evolved from being someone to watch into someone you can’t take your eyes off. Abel is a man of action, fond of inspirational bromides and self-help business slogans, but Isaac, with his mournful eyes and slightly predatory smile, provides tantalizing glimpses of the divided soul behind the confident facade.

"A Most Violent Year" is Chandor’s third feature film — after "Margin Call" and "All Is Lost" — and it is larger in scale and wider in range than its predecessors, both of which are studies in confinement and compression. "Margin Call" took place almost entirely inside the offices of an investment firm on a single hectic night. "All Is Lost" was about a man alone on a boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Compared with them, "A Most Violent Year" is busy and crowded, full of incidental pleasures (including at least a half-dozen memorable bits of character acting, notably from Alessandro Nivola, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Peter Gerety and Jerry Adler) and piquant period details.

"A Most Violent Year" presents an honorable man struggling to stay true to his values in the face of temptation. It is also the portrait of a brilliant hustler working a very long con. It’s a terrific movie either way.

Review by A.O. Scott

© 2015 The New York Times Company