Live By Night (2016)

I have a soft spot for gangster films, and apparently so does writer/director/star Ben Affleck. His adaptation of the novel Live By Night is richly shot, if only a little drawn out. It is luscious to watch and it has a number of great set pieces which get the blood pumping (literally onscreen, figuratively in the audience) peppered between the morality play which puts our broken good man up against systemic and powerful forces of racism, classism, and sexism.

Yes Live By Night is a critique of American white supremacy, and quite an adept one. The film chronicles the way race and class is structured in an American setting itself up for the future, a future which may only have a place for white men to exercise power. Perhaps this is why so many critics struggle with the film, the way it embraces this critique explicitly. Affleck chooses to call out the power structures which extend his character's privilege only so far and other characters less. It is a hero's tale as he mostly overcomes it, at a truly high cost. He shows us how women are used by men in their lives and how it destroys them. This is not a love letter to American glory days but a cautionary tale of what choices this nation is making.

And he wraps it all up in a classic gangster story filled with fedoras, tommy guns, moonshine, and flappers. His eye finds the tropes of the genre and gives them all to us and in my mind he balances all of the expertly. His film is paced somewhat slowly but never to the point of tedium. Instead he gives us moments with each character. He gives us pieces of why each character is weak and strong, good and evil, well meaning and vengeful.

The film isn't a masterpiece but it's damn entertaining and has a good story with well flushed out characters. It is certainly a good night out at the movies.

Live By Night
Starring: Ben Affleck, Zoe Saldana, Sienna Miller, Chris Messina, Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, and Chris Cooper
Writer/Director: Ben Affleck