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Picture
A Boston gangster builds a rum empire in Florida during Prohibition
and faces complications as he abandons his virtues for power.
CRIME/DRAMA

Live by Night ​(2017)

Written and Directed by Ben Affleck

Starring Ben Affleck, Zoe Saldana, Elle Fanning, ​Chris Messina, Robert Glenister, Chris Cooper, Sienna Miller, ​Brendan Gleeson, Remo Girone, Matthew Maher, Miguel

Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane

Connor Eyzaguirre
January 15, 2017
6/10
Ben Affleck has earned critical acclaim time and again for his work in the director's chair. The Town was phenomenal and Argo earned him a well-deserved Oscar. He's proven that he's come a long way from the tabloid jackass from Gigli. Yet, I knew there would inevitably come a time when his work would falter, and unfortunately that time has come with Live by Night. A sprawling gangster epic based on a Dennis Lehane novel, this movie should've been a surefire box office and critical smash. The film's main problem is that it wants to tell at least five different gangster stories, all of which never seem to conjoin into a coherent story. Top that off with a gaggle of disinterested character actors and you've got Affleck's first major misfire as a director.

Affleck stars as Boston gangster Joe Coughlin, a gangster who consistently points out that he isn't a gangster. To call Affleck's performance wooden would be an understatement. He has all the charisma of Tommy Lee Jones doing a Cialis commercial. It astounds me because this was obviously not a paycheck gig for him. He wrote it, he directed it, and he starred in it. Somewhere along the way, he lost interest but never bothered to tell anybody. Nobody else in the film seemed to want to have anything to do with it either, from Brendan Gleeson's brief, dry role as Joe's father to Sienna Miller using one of the worst Irish accents ever to be caught on camera. The story is even worse. In just two hours, you've got a Prohibition story, a KKK story, an Irish/Italian mob battle story, a Christian girl preaching against sin story, and a "Thought Dead but Alive" story all crammed into this thing with barely anything holding it together. Every time a new plot thread was introduced, I thought the film was going to collapse from the sheer weight of too much story.

Live by Night is a disappointment through and through. It lacks emotional depth and interesting characters, thanks to a complete lack of interest from almost anybody involved. I really tried to convince myself it was at least decent, but with a running time of over two hours, I'd be lying if I said you wouldn't be bored out of your mind by the first 20 minutes. I hope Affleck takes note of the backlash and stays awake for his next venture.

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