By Brandy McDonnell, Features WriterAfter releasing three films in just four years, writer-director J.C. Chandor has established himself as one of cinema’s brightest young auteurs, with a distinctive storytelling style: He doesn’t pace his films according to genre conventions; he makes the audience patiently wait for his tight and tense narratives to unfold in their own good time. His previous acclaimed efforts — 2011’s “Margin Call” and 2013’s “All Is Lost” — each earned an Oscar nomination, and it’s a shame that “A Most Violent Year” was left out of this year’s spotty Academy Awards picture, especially considering the caliber of performances Chandor gets out of Oscar Isaac and previous two-time Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain (“Zero Dark Thirty,” “The Help”). Set in New York City in the bleak midwinter of 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in the city’s history, the gritty yet restrained crime drama evokes elements of “The Godfather,” “Macbeth” and the films of Sidney Lumet without seeming derivative. Isaac, who was excellent in 2013’s “Inside Llewyn Davis” but finds a whole new level here, stars as Abel Morales, an immaculately groomed Colombian immigrant who heads his growing heating oil business with an ambitious eye toward the American dream, a canny head for commerce and an unshakable determination to run a mostly straight company in a largely crooked industry.Read more on NewsOK.com