Live By Night Review

Firing Blanks

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief JOEL MEADOWS put on his fedora, adjusted his camel coat and took a look at Ben Affleck’s period gangster movie, Live By Night…

Live By Night
Director: Ben Affleck
Stars: Ben Affleck, Brendan Gleeson, Elle Fanning, Sienna Miller, Remo Girone, Zoe Saldana

Gangsters have long been popular subjects in Hollywood going back to some of the earliest movies. At their best, gangster films can showcase just what can be achieved on the big screen. Films like The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and Goodfellas have an emotional depth and a cinematic power to them that means that they continue to resonate decades after they were made. Live By Night, about American bank robber and gangster Joe Coughlin (Affleck) set in prohibition America, lacks the ambition and the verve of these films, making it feel very much like a second or even third tier gangster film.

Coughlin is an American of Irish extraction and he doesn’t see himself as a traditional gangster. But when his clandestine lover Emma Gould (Sienna Miller) is seemingly killed by her boyfriend, Irish gangster Albert White (Robert Glenister) in Boston, Coughlin decides to ally himself with Italian-American mob boss Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone) who sends him down to Tampa in Florida to run his affairs down there. While he is down there, he falls for Cuban beauty Graciela (Saldana). Of course his past has a way of catching up with him and he can’t escape his history.

Live By Night is based on a Dennis Lehane novel of the same name and The Town proved that Affleck could make very decent thrillers. However, Live By Night is a pulpy mess. Miller as Coughlin’s Irish girlfriend is terrible, Glenister doesn’t ring remotely true as Irish gangster White and Coughlin isn’t an interesting or complex enough character to really carry the whole film. Also, the switch from Boston where the film starts to Tampa in Florida is very jarring and the film’s conclusion feels fairly contrived. There is a sub-plot about the police chief’s daughter Loretta (Fanning) which doesn’t really fit well here. Gleeson as his father is pretty solid and Chris Cooper as Tampa police chief Figgis is always worth watching but it isn’t enough.

What is frustrating is that the ingredients were there to make an enjoyable and entertaining period gangster film but Live By Night is let down by clunky directing, some poor casting choices and a less than wonderful script. It isn’t terrible but it lacks real cinematic power. It is possible that it was just too ambitious a project for Affleck to tackle as a director.

Hopefully he can learn from his mistakes here and move on.

JOEL MEADOWS

Live by Night review www.tripwiremagazine.co.uk