Set in the '30s after a botched robbery goes awry, Joe Coughlin (Ben Affleck) heads to Florida to corner the illegal liquor trade and does battle with the Ku Klux Klan, rival gangs and his own conscience.
Ben Affleck's career as a director and an actor are markedly different in certain respects. More often than not, he chooses big splashy blockbusters to star in while the films he directs are smaller affairs. His style befits a lean and tough approach, with sharp genre thrillers like The Town and Gone Baby Gone comprising his best work. However, when it shifts into his more recent work, namely Argo and Live By Night, it's clear that larger budgets and more prestige-focused films simply don't suit him as a director. While Argo had its moments, it was undeniably a victim of over-praise at the time whereas Live By Night simply comes across as flat, unoriginal and almost vaguely boring.
Affleck is Joe Coughlin, an Irish hoodlum in '20s Boston who enjoys his work and lifestyle, much to the chagrin of his police inspector father, Brendan Gleeson. His love interest, Sienna Miller, is in thrall to another Irish gangster, this one played by British character actor Robert Glenister. As you can imagine, this causes problem and before long, Affleck's character is in Florida trying to make a run at the rum trade with the help of Chris Messina and Zoe Saldana.
Right from the get-go, it's clear that the film has been woefully miscast right across the board. Ben Affleck's imposing frame sticks out like a sore thumb between all the hats, Sienna Miller and Robert Glenister mangle the Irish accent so badly that it's near-laughable in places and Brendan Gleeson appears for only a few scenes and then is almost never referenced in the film again. The criminally underrated Chris Cooper is the only one who seems to know what he's doing, but the fact that he's paired with a blank-looking Elle Fanning just drags him and his character down even further. Zoe Saldana, meanwhile, has nothing in the way of agency or impact and Chris Messina is simply there for a few comedic blips. Realistically, none of the characters are developed in any kind of meaningful way - bar Ben Affleck. This, in itself, feeds into the main problem with Live By Night.
In short, Ben Affleck shouldn't have put himself in the starring role. Producing, directing, writing and acting in a film can be an exhausting process and the bigger the film, the more likely it is that's something going to suffer for it. Adapting Dennis Lehane's novels can be a tricky thing. You only need to look at something like The Drop to know that they're not all winners and that it requires some retooling and understanding to make it into a workable script. There's a few twists turns in the story that, very often, feel completely unnecessary and will have you scratching your head as to why they're even there in the first place. More specifically, the film's third act is punctuated by a very well directed action setpiece that you suspect was thrown in order to paper over giant cracks in the ending and keep people entertained in an otherwise boring enough story.
It's a real shame because Affleck's choice of films has, up to now, played to his strengths. Live By Night is a disappointment, as it's neither original or interesting enough to warrant attention and so plainly made as to be forgettable. The flew blips of action here and there are fine, but it's all so laboured and predictable that it's a slog to get through them.