Review: Live By Night

(Dir: Ben Affleck, 2016)

Live By Night is an interesting film that never feels like it's living up to its potential. As an adaptation of a novel perhaps the fault lies with the source material, but having never read it it's hard to know. As we've seen elsewhere, the Prohibition influenced 1920's is rife for intriguing stories – all gangsters, tommy guns and loose morals. What Live By Night does differently is supplant the majority of the film from the chill of Boston to the glowing, sweaty climes of Florida, throwing Cuban gangsters into the mix of Irish and Italian mobsters. They are potentially more fascinating yet too thinly sketched out – there's clearly a lot more to Zoe Saldana's Graciela for example (and her brother Esteban (Miguel Pimental)), who retains a strength throughout despite being all too quickly relegated to love interest with a conscious.

The focus lies with Ben Affleck's Joe Coughlin whose character is too broadly presented. He is strongly driven by his 'no masters' ethos and a burning desire for revenge, all the while exhibiting a ruthless business acumen and an over-powering sense of altruism. He's a gangster who has to do bad things when required but doesn't feel good about it, meaning Affleck presents his character as the most idealised example of what a gangster should be, and it never sits quite right. Nonetheless Affleck is enjoyable to watch and his easy charm and somewhat old school movie star quality sit well with the film's period. The setting adds some warmth to proceedings and makes a nice change, but certain sub plots, such as Sam Shepherd's police chief and his daughter Elle Fanning, probably worked better more fleshed out on page. The film seems to lack a sense of flow, effectively jumping from one small plot development to the next, as if there are just too many story beats that it must fit in. And the less said about Affleck spending the last few minutes channelling his time with Terrence Malick the better!

There's certainly some enjoyment to be had from Live By Night. Within it there is an interesting story, and it's great to look at thanks to excellent production design and some well staged shoot-outs and car chases. You just can't help but think that had it pared down the story a little, and done more with Zoe Saldana's character, it could've been so much better.