A group of Boston-bred gangsters set up shop in balmy Florida during the Prohibition era, facing off against the competition and the Ku Klux Klan. Boston, 1926. The '20s are roaring. Liquor is flowing, bullets are flying, and one man sets out to make his mark on the world. Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city's most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw. But life on the dark side carries a heavy price. In a time when ruthless men of ambition, armed with cash, illegal booze, and guns, battle for control, no one-neither family nor friend, enemy nor lover-can be trusted. Beyond money and power, even the threat of prison, one fate seems most likely for men like Joe: an early death. But until that day, he and his friends are determined to live life to the hilt. Joe embarks on a dizzying journey up the ladder of organized crime that takes him from the flash of Jazz Age Boston to the sensual shimmer of Tampa's Latin Quarter to the sizzling streets of Cuba. Live by Night is a riveting epic layered with a diverse cast of loyal friends and callous enemies, tough rumrunners and sultry femmes fatales, Bible-quoting evangelists and cruel Klansmen, all battling for survival and their piece of the American dream. At once a sweeping love story and a compelling saga of revenge, it is a spellbinding tour de force of betrayal and redemption, music and murder, that brings fully to life a bygone era when sin was cause for celebration and vice was a national virtue. 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.<br/><br/>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.<br/><br/>"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").<br/><br/>It's a good-looking, majestic, violent and slowburning mafia drama taking place in 1920-30's USA, from Boston to Florida. <br/><br/>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. <br/><br/>But the result is not just me-too-project because mafia dramas are cool. The ambitions have been higher.<br/><br/>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.<br/><br/>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. <br/><br/>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.<br/><br/>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… <br/><br/>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… <br/><br/>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. <br/><br/>Considering how many movie makers just seem to waste the acting talent they have been given, it surely must count for something.<br/><br/>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. <br/><br/>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. <br/><br/>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.<br/><br/>That may not be all that original but mafia epics don't usually offer this kind of depth, outside of TV world. This neo-noir is written by, directed by, produced by, concocted by, and stars Ben Affleck. Music by Ben Affleck, with a harmonium solo by Ben Affleck. With additional dialog by Ben Affleck.<br/><br/>Therefore, a lot of whatever appeal this film should have depends on Ben Affleck. And how does it turn out? Not too bad actually.<br/><br/>It's 1920s in Boston. Affleck is an Irish bootlegger hired by the Italian gang to go down to Tampa and establish the booze and casino business in the face of anti-Yankee sentiments from the local hoods and corrupt law enforcement officers. He succeeds, more or less, taking a bullet along the way, until some intractable head of the mob back in Boston thinks he should be replaced, leading to one of several shootouts.<br/><br/>In Tampa (or whatever it's called here – Yboro City or something) he encounters insults about his Northernness and religion from the Ku Klux Klan, whom he wipes out with a swipe of his hand, helped immeasurably by his aide de camp, Remo Gerone. How does he take out, say, the Grand Imperial Wizard and Majestic Necromancer? Simple. In the middle of a discussion, seated across the desk from the snarling Southerner, he yanks out a .45 and puts a bullet into the Great Wazier's forehead.<br/><br/>The friction between Affleck and the Klan doesn't last long. The friction between Affleck and the Cuban girl Zoe Saldana lasts a lot longer, which is perfectly understandable. She's a paragon of pulchritude and probably, beyond that, Affleck may want to learn to speak Spanish. There's another woman in the plot. Two, really, but let's concentrate on the second, Elle Fanning, because her role is important if brief. She's appalling young and beautiful, with nothing more than an impudent bump where her nose should be, but her cornflower blue eyes are the eyes of kewpie doll. She's so cute that I was ready to dismiss her out of hand as an actress. But she has one extended scene with Affleck in a café that puts her in the same rank as the rest of the cast.<br/><br/>And Affleck? He's muscular and big. He's soft spoken, like Clint Eastwood, and a man of few words. In fact, his features look grim and chiseled. If Lawrence Tierney knew how to act and had just walked out of a Gestalt therapy class, he might look like and behave like Affleck. He delivers the goods but the role itself – romantic noir hero – is a tight suit that doesn't allow him much in the way of displaying his acting chops. As a director he gets the job done.<br/><br/>And that harmonium solo? Pure virtuosity. Overstuffed and disappointing, Live By Night wastes a strong supporting cast. It's not a total loss, but it doesn’t hold up against the rest of Affleck’s filmography.
Estohelyc replied
367 weeks ago