Live by Night

When I learned of "Live by Night", I was ecstatic. I figured this was going to be a serious contender come Awards Season. Maybe for directing, maybe for acting. Nope!

Set during the prohibition era, Joe Coughlin (Ben Affleck) sees the love of his life (Sienna Miller) taken away by notorious Irish crime lord Albert White (Robert Glenister) To get his revenge, he agrees to move to Florida and work for the man’s rival, Italian Mafia boss Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone)

This picture suffers severely from TMSGO: Too much stuff going on. Joe finds true love not once, but twice during the running time; there’s the whole crime family rivalry thing throughout; there are numerous scenes that show off how Coughlin has to sidestep the authorities’ scrutiny and how the chief of police (Chris Cooper) rationalizes it all; our protagonist has emotional stuff going on as he struggles with his mob duties and his personal code of ethics; and numerous sub-plots as well. Looking at the credits I see that the film is based on a novel and that Affleck stars, directs, and wrote the screen adaptation. He's like a little kid putting together an ice cream sundae. No topping is omitted in order to make the greatest desert of all time, but someone needed to get Affleck to take a step back and restrain himself.

You’d think that with the cast (which also include Zoe Saldana and Brendan Gleeson) and all of the characters and plots that at least "Live By Night" would have an identity. It doesn’t. In the end, it's little more than a generic mob story with a few splashes of interest. When the Ku Klux Klan shows up and presents itself as a major opponent I felt excited. How would our hero, who is reluctant to kill and to sink into the dirtier aspects of organized crime like drugs and prostitution, handle this? The answer is rather quickly. It’s frustrating. I feel like this could’ve been 5 good stories if they had been presented individually. Together, it’s squandered potential.

It's well shot, the action climax is awesome, and several satisfying moments are found throughout. I can see it working in theory. Unfortunately, that's it."Live by Night" is not noteworthy. The only explanations I can find is that Affleck was too in love with his project and that everyone surrounding him was too confident in his ability to direct to say anything. He can’t even manage to keep up his Irish accent and someone should’ve called him out. If I was catching this at home I might’ve given it a (slightly) higher rating, but there are so many better films playing at the theater right now and if you’re a fan of Affleck, it’s a big letdown. (Theatrical version on the big screen, January 22, 2017)