Review of Live by Night (2016) by Chris O — 17 Jan 2017

Review - Live by Night.

The pieces of a great movie are here, but the heart is lacking.

In his 4th movie as director, Ben Affleck takes on the difficult task of creating a gangster movie in the 21st century. While the movie is gorgeously shot, extremely well acted, and the costumes and atmosphere are on point, the film lacks the heart and soul that made other mobster movies so great.

Joe Coughlin (Affleck) a prohibition bandit, as he calls himself, doesn't think of himself as a gangster. However, fate has forced Joe into working for the mob as he kills or has others killed in the name of moving toward heaven. What comes of this is a swearing gangster story, which pits Joe in the most dire of circumstances and the addiction of money and power start to take over.

Although containing beautiful scenery and set in Florida and Cuba, writer/director Affleck's crime story misses the weight of crime films, which casually juxtapose the serious with the not so. It lacks the sass of Pulp Fiction and the gravitas of The Godfather with not much of their verbal gymnastics or irony. It lacks the heart that made Goodfellas and Casino such modern classics, mainly because the film fails to have the tense 'edge of your seat' moments that other films thrive on..

Joe wanting to be a saint while being a sinner requires an actor of considerable resources, which Affleck showed a modicum of recently in the Accountant because it required him to be affectless. He brings that same stolid mien to this film and endangers the edge necessary for the success of actors like Al Pacino. Like Affleck, the film is listless except when Tommy Guns take charge.

As Joe navigates from a low-rent lover, Emma (Sienna Miller), to a classy love, Graciella (Zoe Saldana), director Affleck spends too much time on their embraces and too little on what makes him love them so passionately. He does love his own image as his abundance of self close-ups testifies. Maybe there is no passion, just old affectless Affleck, even though I did enjoy his acting, there just wasn't much else to the characters.

It's dumping time in Hollywood, and Live by the Night is a classic example of why smart studios dump dull movies in January. It's not all that bad the way Joe is not all that bad. However, it just doesn't have the firepower to go against the big guns in the Oscar race. Remember the wild surprises and rich characters of the long-form Sopranos?

Which is where the heart is nowadays in gangster stories and that would be on T.V.

6.5/10.