‘ I don’t wanna be a gangster. I stopped kissing rings a long time ago…’
Ben Affleck’s career as a director has been a string of successes with one notable flop. Gone Baby Gone, The Town, Argo and Air were all critically acclaimed, award-winning movies. Live by Night, released to a collective shrug in 2016, has been all but forgotten. Now, I’m obviously a huge advocate of Ben Affleck and his career, and while this is probably his weakest film as a director, I’m here to tell you that it’s still well worth seeking out…
Joe Coughlin (Affleck) is a WWI veteran and a petty thief in prohibition-era America. Coughlin loves gangster’s moll Emma Gould (Sienna Miller) but their plan to elope to California is doomed to fail. Namely because Gould is the ‘property’ of crime boss Albert White (Robert Glenister). Live by Night clips along at a breathless pace and so this part of the plot is dispatched within the first thirty minutes. The rest of the movie concerns Coughlin’s attempts to take over the rum empire of Tampa, Florida alongside his accomplice Dion (Chris Messina), local police chief Figgis (Chris Cooper) and Figgis’ aspiring actress daughter Loretta (Elle Fanning). A stacked cast then, and that’s before I mention Brendan Gleeson. Matthew Maher and Zoe Saldana. And this is part of the problem. Even at over two hours, there is just too much story to pack in here. Live by Night could have made an excellent miniseries. As it is, it’ll have to settle for being merely a ‘good’ film.
Affleck has the brooding intensity and imposing physical presence to convince as a gangster and he is typically excellent here. The whole cast is effective as Affleck proves once again that he is capable of coaxing performances out of a disparate ensemble cast. Sharing writing duties with celebrated scriptwriter Dennis Lehane (Shutter Island, Mystic River), Affleck’s script is bursting with ideas but the sprawling plot ends up being a hindrance rather than a help. The other issue is that this is familiar ground even within the gangster subgenre. We’ve seen all of this before and done better elsewhere – indeed, the spectre of Scorsese looms large over the whole thing. That being said, we’ve also seen this kind of thing done a lot worse, and the strong cast coupled with Affleck’s eye for the aesthetic ensures that Live by Night feels cinematic.
While Affleck’s fourth feature film doesn’t do enough to win him any new supporters, gangster movie fans will find plenty to enjoy here. I certainly did.