For the last three or four years, I’ve said that I think and hope that Ben Affleck can be our generation’s Clint Eastwood. Affleck has completely transformed himself into a Hollywood A-lister. With a career that really began with Kevin Smith movies like Mallrats and Chasing Amy, Affleck became a household name when he won an Academy Award (best original screenplay) for Good Will Hunting, a film in which he co-starred with Matt Damon. Affleck then stars in big-budget blockbusters such as Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and The Sum of All Fears. But after he started dating Jennifer Lopez and co-starred with her in both the forgettable Jersey Girl and Gigli, a movie that many people have called one of the worst movies ever made, his perception as an actor began taking a turn for the worse. Forgettable money grabbers like Daredevil, Paycheck, and Surviving Christmas accompanied tabloid fodder and, seemingly, in the blink of an eye, Affleck became sort of a joke in the Hollywood circles. Meanwhile, best friend Matt Damon was striking gold with everything he touched. But in 2007, Affleck dabbled with directing for the first time and had one of the best directorial debuts of all-time with the quiet, understated, and much revered Gone Baby Gone. Knowing he needed a break from being in front of the camera, Affleck turned to his brother Casey Affleck as his leading man. Not only did it launch Casey’s career, but critics and fans alike wanted to know if Ben was a one-hit-wonder as a director or if this was a sign of things to come. Fortunately, this was just the start for Affleck, who has since directed The Town (my second favorite movie of all time), and Argo, the Academy Award Winner for Best Picture of 2012. Affleck also reemerged as a leading man with The Town, Argo, State of Play, and the amazing Gone Girl. In all honesty, Affleck was due for a dud. But, personally, I felt like I owed it to him to see whatever his fourth movie behind the camera would be. I was excited about Live by Night when I first heard about it, but I went in with lower expectations after seeing the critics’ score of 33% and the audience’s score of 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. While this easily was his worst movie as a director, it wasn’t bad, but rather because his other movies were so good. I didn’t love Live by Night, but I by no means disliked it. It was longer than it needed to be and had a couple of too many storylines. But Affleck created a well-crafted story with some memorable characters, and, honestly, I’ll probably watch this movie again when it comes to Netflix so I can better analyze it and catch all of the parts that I might have missed.
Set in the late 1920s during prohibition, Joe Coughlin (Affleck) has is a veteran of World War I who has seen his share of killing and good men die. He has no interest in any of that anymore. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to sit in an office for 40 hours a week and watch his life pass him by. Instead, he heists illegal, high stake poker games with some buddies. He’s got an “inside man” named Emma Gould (Sienna Miller – American Sniper, Foxcatcher), who is the girlfriend of Irish gang boss Albert White (Robert Glenister – television’s Hustle) and the woman that Joe is in love with. They spend moments together when Albert is out of town. Their relationship is passionate, and it’s obvious they are in love. We don’t learn much about the relationship between Albert and Emma, but he’s not the most attractive man, and he’s more than twice her age while she still is very beautiful and in her prime physically. The relationship between Joe and Emma is much more believable and one that we want to succeed as we see it play out.
***Spoilers***
But Joe has dreams of starting a new life after it is discovered by Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone), an Italian gangster who is the rival of White. He is having a relationship with Emma. Knowing that Joe has certain attributes that could be useful if he was part of his crew, Maso offers him an ultimatum. Joe can either work for Maso or Maso will tell Albert about his relationship with Emma, ultimately leading to Albert whacking him. Not wanting to become a gangster, Joe declines Maso’s invitation. When he isn’t immediately killed, Joe tells Emma that Maso didn’t tell Albert (yet at least) because he’d already be dead if he had. But with this new piece of information in hand, Joe knows he needs to get out of Boston. Emma agrees, and the two make a plan to go to California. Joe, needing one last payday, robs a local bank with his two men. It goes poorly, and death results after a long police chase, including the death of two officers. Knowing he will be held responsible for the deaths, Joe makes an instant plan to get out of Boston. He goes to pick up Emma at a casino owned by Albert. But she has turned on him. Albert has learned of the relationship between Joe and Emma and has plans to make him pay. Emma only agrees because Albert has promised not to kill Joe. But he goes back on his promise and has his men kill both Emma and Joe. Emma is removed, and Joe, beaten to a pulp, is taken outside to be eliminated permanently. But the Boston Police is outside waiting for him, and Albert’s men are forced to drop his body and leave.
Joe ends up spending three years in jail. His father, Thomas (Brendan Gleeson – Cavalry, In Bruges), is a police chief and is blackmail the judge from issuing a life sentence to his son. Joe spends his team planning how he will exact revenge on Albert for killing Emma and beating him to within an inch of his life. Unfortunately, Thomas dies two weeks before Joe gets out of prison. With nothing left and nowhere to go, Joe seeks Maso for employment. He’s assigned to Ybor City in Tampa, Florida, to an enforcer for Maso’s rum business. Here, he is reunited with Dion (Chris Messina – Cake, Argo), one of the men he used to run within Boston. He quickly develops a relationship with Graciella (Zoe Saldana – Avatar, Out of the Furnace), the sister of a Cuban businessman named Esteban Suarez (Miguel). As we know, mixed-race relationships weren’t exactly looked upon favorably in the 1930s, especially down in the south.
After taken control of the rum business, Maso wants to start a casino in Tampa Bay and wants Joe and Dion to lead the charge. To do so, they connect with Police Chief Irving Figgis (Chris Cooper – Adaptation, Breach), who helps set up a meeting with RD Pruitt (Matthew Maher – A Most Violent Year, While We’re Young), his brother-in-law and a member of the local KKK. This occurs after the KKK recently burned a cross at one of Joe’s nightclubs. RD agrees to take 15% of the revenue generated by the clubs if the KKK will stop harassing people and ruining his business ventures. This is when all heck breaks loose in the movie. A racist is a racist, and sometimes, no amount of money can keep an individual from being his true self. RD, in all of his hate, can’t stop terrorizing people of color. Joe knows he needs to permanently eliminate him but needs some pull to get Irving to give him up. And pull he has. Irving’s daughter Loretta (Elle Fanning – Super 8, Maleficent) has gone to Hollywood to be a movie star but has become a Heroin addict and finds herself in pornography photographs to support her habit. Only Joe knows where she is, and the only way he’ll give up her location is if Irving tells Joe where RD is. Joe kills RD. Loretta comes up and receives her whippings from her conservative father before she begins preaching on her own about sin in the world. Singlehandedly (as this is a bit of a stretch in the movie), she can convince the local government to pull funding from Maso and Joe’s casino because her sermons have put people off from drugs, alcohol, and gambling. She has the scars on her arms from the drugs to show the powers of Heroin and is convincing enough to tie drugs and gambling together.
Failing to secure the casino or eliminate Loretta, Maso comes down to remove Joe from power. He brings a new friend with him, and more craziness ensues. There is a good amount of action when this happens. But, you never feel like anything bad is going to happen to Joe. Of course, there will be casualties, but we always feel safe with Joe and feel like he will get the final blow in.
***End of Spoilers***
There isn’t much of a review here without reading the spoilers. I actually think reading the spoilers might help you better understand the movie. There is quite a bit going on. I know that I had to research this movie after watching it to understand all that I missed. A LOT is going on here. And I often struggle with mafia/gangster movies because I don’t entirely understand how that stuff works (which I think is good). There were many characters, and many character turns. Affleck’s Joe was always at the center of everything. And while this certainly wasn’t Affleck’s best performance (heck, it wasn’t even his best of the year…that belonged to his starring role in The Accountant), he was good. And while this was his fourth-best movie out of the four he directed, it was still very good. I’m wondering if Affleck tried to do too much. Maybe this should have been one of those movies he directed in but didn’t star in? I’m not sure. I don’t know who would have done better in the role because Affleck did do a great job. And the supporting characters did a fine job, especially Miller, Messina, Cooper, and Fanning. But there were lots of things that Affleck’s other movies had going for them that this one did not. This one lacked the mysterious and intense scores of Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and Argo. This one lacked the emotional ties that you had to the characters in his other movies. Sure, Joe was the protagonist, and he was a likable guy, but it never felt like he was in danger. And while his character went through a good deal of trauma throughout the course of the film, you never were able to really empathize with him.
Live by Night is a good movie, even though it is a flawed one. If you enjoy Affleck’s other movies, I encourage you to support the man by seeing this one in the theater. It does drag at times, and it’s a little too complex, but Affleck has his pulse on the story the whole time. He knows what he wants, and I think he ultimately gets it, but it does come at the expense of the audience, who is dog-tired and has its head spinning by the time everything is over. With apologies to Argo (which did occur in Affleck’s lifetime), this is his first real attempt at a period piece. And, while I don’t know what life was like in the 1920s and the 1930s, if this movie attempted to be as intense as one like The Untouchables, it really didn’t feel that way to me. The villains didn’t seem bad, and you felt safe while watching a scene involving the formidable Affleck, which was every single scene in this movie.
Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 8.5/10
Character Chemistry 8.5/10
Acting 8.5/10
Screenplay 8.5/10
Directing 8.5/10
Cinematography 9.5/10
Sound 8.5/10
Hook and Reel 8/10
Universal Relevance 8/10
86.5%