Review of Live by Night (2016) by Kaptenvideo — 23 Jan 2017

Do you remember? Ben Affleck's breakthrough came alongside then-BFF Matt Damon, starring in "Good Will Hunting" (1997) for which they both also won Academy Award for best original screenplay.

Affleck's career hasn't been as chock-full of rock solid movies as Damon's but he's still a fine actor and some would say he's even better as director. He won his second Academy Award for directing "Argo" (2013) but his first works in this field, "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town", are really good also.

"Live by Night" is probably meant as Affleck's magnum opus, with him directing, starring and adapting another Dennis Lehane's novel (after "Gone Baby Gone").

It's a good-looking, majestic, violent and slowburning mafia drama taking place in 1920-30's USA, from Boston to Florida. In a good way, it's really reminiscent of such great classics as "The Godfather" and "Scarface". Sometimes it feels more like the former, the other times the latter. But the result is not just me-too-project because mafia dramas are cool. The ambitions have been higher.

Affleck is careful to build up the authentic setting and let characters have enough depth to make us actually care. Like in good tv series, he takes his time creating the atmosphere but also offering enough brutal bloodletting to keep the more impatient viewer satisfied.

There's no serious problem with the result... but "Live by Night" is too traditional. It's like re-watching your favorite mafia epics – from recent stuff, I'd recommend HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" – but with a big helping of sad-faced Affleck. It's all good but not so fresh anymore. What's worse, these days many of the other screen stories about criminals offer this kind of experiences too. You can enjoy comparable quality, from Netflix's "Luke Cage", for example. Americans really know how to put together stuff like this, and they have done so many times, which doesn't work for Affleck's favor.

On the other hand, if you haven't seen enough of this kind of stuff, "Live by Night" offers everything the genre fan needs: good story, exciting action, convincing characters, really good cast of actors... Affleck fills the lead and has the most amount of screen time. There are also Sienna Miller and Zoe Saldana as two of his biggest loves, Brendan Gleeson as his father, plus various interesting characters played by Chris Cooper, Elle Fanning, Miguel (yes, that R&B star), Matthew Maher, Chris Messina... I didn't just list a bunch of actors here, all of them impressed me with their performances and colorful characters. "Live by Night" may not be super gripping story-wise but it sure does have a lot of cool actors in memorable roles. Considering how many moviemakers just seem to waste the acting talent they have been given, it surely must count for something.

I enjoyed how there's something interesting nuance or detail about each and every major character. For example, the lead man doesn't just want to be gangster and chooses to see himself just an outlaw. His priority is to be his own man and he dislikes violence, choosing the diplomatic way whenever possible. For most of the time, he even questions if he's cruel enough to hold this position of power he has gained. You will remember him as sad, haunted man locked between two worlds, never quite achieving neither peace nor freedom he seems to want so much.

That may not be all that original but mafia epics don't usually offer this kind of depth, outside of TV world.