Reel-View Ratings: The Bigger The Beard, The Better The Movie

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR

Is there ever such a thing as an on-the-level businessman in a gangster film? Oscar Isaac (channeling his inner Michael Corleone) plays such a righteous rarity in A Most Violent Year, as Abel Morales, an aspiring oil tycoon who finds himself on the cusp of a make-or-break business deal — except that his trucks are getting hijacked, his mafia-born wife is scheming a bloodier path to success, and the district attorney is circling overhead. The movie takes a slow-burn approach, as things inch toward a boiling point that never quite overflows. The performances are stellar; the 1981 New York backdrop is sinister. But The Godfather Part II this ain’t.

Opens Jan. 30 at Kahala Theatre

THE JUDGE

This way-too-long, phoned-in attempt at Oscar bait managed to net itself a nomination (Best Supporting Actor for Robert Duvall), which is exactly one more nomination than it should have received. Robert Downey Jr. (who seems content to play Tony Stark anew in every movie role he takes nowadays) is a bigshot lawyer who ends up defending his estranged father (Duvall), a cold, harsh judge and, now, an accused murderer. There are nuggets of a good movie buried in this two-hour-plus behemoth, but viewers will need a jackhammer (and infinite patience) to excavate it. Yes, there are big names involved, but they can do — and have done — better than this. Plays 1:45 and 6 p.m. Jan. 29 and noon, 4:15 and 6:45 p.m. Feb. 1 at the Movie Museum

PROJECT ALMANAC

Time travel is so complex that few movies attempt to engage with its rules and contradictions beyond the fatal admonition not to change the past. But Project Almanac tries to flesh out those complexities, with a heavy dose of teenage angst and emotion, all wrapped up in a found-footage package. It borrows heavily from just about every other time travel movie in the world (and it acknowledges that, cheerfully). You want to believe this movie — delayed for more than a year, with multiple title changes and a little-known cast — will manage to do something new and different. You don’t need to see the future to know this doesn’t quite happen.

Opens Jan. 30 in wide release