Directed by:
Ben AffleckScreenplay:
Ben AffleckCinematography:
Robert RichardsonComposer:
Harry Gregson-WilliamsCast:
Ben Affleck, Remo Girone, Elle Fanning, Zoe Saldana, Sienna Miller, Chris Messina, Anthony Michael Hall, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Cooper, Titus Welliver (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
A story set in the Prohibition Era and centered around a group of individuals and their dealings in the world of organized crime. (Warner Bros. US)
Videos (9)
Reviews (8)
I must say, Ben Affleck disappointed me in this film. Besides showing off his acting chops, which I don't enjoy much, he's just too macho here, and you don't really believe his emotions, so story-wise, it's quite boring, and also predictable. It jumps from topic to topic, from scene to scene, to keep from being boring. And yet it's boring.
()
I'm not too happy. I admire Ben Affleck for being able to direct, write the script and play the lead role, not many people can do that, but the film itself is rather bland. Of the modern gangster flicks I like Gangster Squad the best because of the fast-paced and gritty action. Live by Night features only two action scenes really, and that's at the beginning and at the end, which were very good, the intense car chase and the final shootout had some oomph. I enjoyed the few brisk deaths, but I found the flow of the film itself very uninteresting and tedious, if it was 30 minutes longer I probably couldn't handle it. 60%
()
Ben Affleck's ambitious attempt at a stylish gangster flick falls flat due to the fragmentation of the plot and the uncertain, conflicted script. Is it a Prohibition-era mafia tale or romantic multicultural cotton candy propping up a gangster storyline? Fortunately, this distracting element is partly saved by the great 1920s atmosphere and aesthetically extremely pleasing direction (the walk on the pier, the setting sun, etc.). I certainly wasn't bored, but I expected a bit more from Affleck. Maybe he’ll do better next time if he just concentrates on directing and casts someone with more charisma in the lead role instead of himself. As it is, it's just an average spectacle overall, even a bit below average in Affleck's directorial filmography.
()
Everything I feared became a reality. You want a gritty gangster revenge flick, but instead you wait with fear in your eyes for a dressed-up Gatsby to pop around the corner in some lavish camera swoop. That's how "beautiful" Live By Night is, unfortunately, in this case. It does have a flair for pictorial composition, it’s well-acted with few exceptions, with some great roles given damn little space (Gleeson, Cooper). Unfortunately, thematically, it's a film that's not supposed to be so fancy, especially when right at the beginning you get a lively action set-piece like in Public Enemies. It is, after all, a gritty story from a harsh and unforgiving time, and not a poster-boy reminiscence of the golden 1930s. And that's exactly the point where Affleck screwed up, hand in hand with the script. He shows the twenties with poetics, in a haze of nostalgia that doesn’t fit. It called for shady businesses, down-to-earth characters, period hits and dirty streets, exactly how we like it in other films. Still, Affleck has a talent for directing and he can act, but hopefully, he will no longer write scripts.
()
Somewhere in there is a good film. Somewhere in the background, somewhere in the editing room. It's an hour longer, looks just as good and beautiful as what we got in the cinema, but besides those nice visuals, there are also functioning relationships between the characters and it has a story that doesn't rush anywhere and you can enjoy and have fun with it. Unfortunately, we got in the cinema evidently suffers from being brutally cut. Live by Night senselessly rushes forward, and instead of a modern gangster saga, we have twenty-minute episodes about dealing with mafia competition in Florida, then with the Ku Klux Klan, then with religious fanatics, and then it all ends. I felt like someone had played me a six-hour miniseries cut down to feature length, and I wasn't thrilled about it.
()
Ads