The Activities Program Board (APB) kicks off its Spring 2015 Film Festival this week with “A Most Violent Year,” which will air Wednesday and Thursday night at 7 p.m. The film stars Oscar nominated Jessica Chastain opposite Oscar Isaac.

“A Most Violent Year,” along with its lead actor Oscar Isaac, is brooding and dark and understated. The plot is slow. There is no great twist or turn, though I will admit I was waiting for one. There is no moment in which Isaac breaks out of his reserved, calculated manner and finally expels all that has clearly been brewing inside him. Despite all of this, I could not turn away for a minute, and the ending left me satisfied.

The narrative is a bit of a convoluted one, unlike writer/director J.C. Chandor’s first feature, the straightforward “All Is Lost”. Abel (Isaac) and Anne Morales (Jessica Chastain) are the owners and operators of Standard Oil and looking to expand their business. The film begins during a business deal between Abel, his agent Andrew (Albert Brooks) and a group of Hasidic Jews from whom they are buying land.

The story is set in New York City in 1981, one of the most violent years in the city’s history and the idea behind the film’s title. What is surprising is that there is actually very little violence in the film, apart from that done to the Standard Oil drivers who are routinely robbed of their trucks, something Abel must deal with without inciting even more violence.

Trying to quell violence, and all that comes with it, is one driving forces behind Abel’s character. While the movie plays much like a gangster film, with Abel at its center, he is actually hell bent on not being a gangster. Abel’s low-talking nature, along with his skill for negotiation with a hint of unspoken threat, makes him seem the ultimate mobster archetype, but we see very little if any kind of evidence to back up that threat.

It is actually Anne, whose father was a mobster and former owner of Standard Oil, who is

more the short-tempered violent one of the duo. A scene in which the two hit a deer while driving home from a dinner party is used as a vehicle to give us just this type of impression.

Despite a head on collision, the deer is not dead, leaving Abel to put him out of his misery. When he is not quick enough, Anne emerges from the car gun in hand to resolve the matter once and for all. This is a not-so-subtle way in which Anne completely emasculates Abel, telling him that if he is not strong enough to protect their family, she will.

It is after this charged scene, in which the two show some of the amazing on-screen chemistry that makes this film such a treat, that we as an audience are almost conditioned to expect Abel to snap. To prove to his wife that he is a man, likely by doing some macho, yet overwhelmingly misinformed action to win back some of his bravado. Yet Abel is unphased, continuing his work as he always has, with forethought and a largely inexistent temper.

The American dream is very much at the center of “A Most Violent Year.” Coming to head during a scene in which Andrew asks the question we are all wondering, “Why do you want it so much?” It is never really defined, but the American dream is probably the best answer. Abel shrugs the question off, acting as if he has no idea what Andrew means, though it is clear he does. Abel wants to be successful, but unlike other characters of his type, even others we meet in the film, he wants to do it the right way, despite countless examples of those around him succeeding, regardless of their righteousness. It is almost as if Abel has seen all the gangster movies we have, and knows that a few bad decisions will ultimately be a man’s downfall despite any amount of good intentions.

Isaac and Chastain are amazing as the complicated duo of opposing ideals in what is very much a role reversal of their characters usual archetypes. Isaac doesn’t have any scenes where he can let loose in a DeNiro or Pacino manner – though I believe he could handle that just fine – instead he must be more subtle in his anger and frustration. Disappointment is more of tendency than anger within his character. The film may have done better commercially if it ended with a big scene of epic violence and ample bloodshed, but it seems Chandor, like his protagonist, just doesn’t want to cheat to make it big.

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