As a feature-length director, Ben Affleck hit home runs in his first three trips to the plate with \u201cGone Baby Gone,\u201d \u201cThe Town\u201d and \u201cArgo.\u201d
In at-bat No. 4, he flies out to medium-deep right field.
Affleck directs, adapts a screenplay based on a Dennis Lehane novel, produces AND stars in \u201cLive by Night,\u201d a curiously unfocused Prohibition-era gangster epic with some well-choreographed action scenes, a few provocative plot threads \u2014 but an increasingly meandering main story line that goes from intriguing to confounding to preachy to what exactly are we even watching here?
Affleck\u2019s first problem as a director is his own performance as Boston-born Irish mobster Joe Coughlin, a big lunk in snazzy suits and wide-brimmed hats who tells his tale in flat, clich\u00e9-riddled, voice-over narration. It\u2019s as if Joe himself isn\u2019t all that interested in The Story of Joe.
After seeing combat in World War I and witnessing \u201cgood men dying for no good reason\u201d in France while the men who start wars and run the world suffer no consequences, Joe returns home with one goal: to grab life by the collar and live it to the fullest, consequences be damned.
\u201cI left a soldier and came home an outlaw,\u201d says Joe.
The earliest sequences in \u201cLive by Night\u201d are the most compelling. Joe and his small crew, including the obligatory wisecracking, loyal sidekick Dion Bartolo (a miscast Chris Messina, sporting crooked teeth and a paunch), are knocking off banks left and right while trying to steer clear of the mob wars between the Italians and the Irish.
Fat chance. Joe\u2019s street smart, but he\u2019s not too bright. Seems as if half the city knows he\u2019s a bank robber.
Joe\u2019s father (an excellent Brendan Gleeson) is the deputy superintendent of police, torn between defending the law and protecting his son\u2019s not-too-secret criminal shenanigans. Meanwhile, Joe\u2019s carrying on a steamy affair with one Emma Gould (Sienna Miller), a charming floozy from the wrong side of town who is also the mistress of Irish mob boss Albert White (Robert Glenister).
That entanglement creates a bloody mess that leads to Joe winding up in Tampa, working for Italian mob boss Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone), taking control of moving mass quantities of illegal \u201cdemon rum,\u201d running nightclubs \u2014 and falling in love with Zoe Saldana\u2019s Graciella Suarez.
Affleck the director does a fine job staging shootouts and car chases and bloody confrontations in nightclubs and offices. When the violence comes, it comes hard and heavy \u2014 and in sometimes shocking fashion. It\u2019s mob gunfire in the tradition of Coppola and Scorsese.
Once we\u2019re in Florida, however, the screenplay weaves this way and that, as Joe wavers between executing his mission with cold-hearted efficiency and experiencing moments of conscience at the most inconvenient times. What Affleck the actor fails to convey is the motivation behind some of Joe\u2019s more dubious decisions.
Chris Cooper is the Tampa police chief, one Irving Figgis, who seems awfully na\u00efve for someone who says he\u2019s killed seven men in his life. Elle Fanning is the police chief\u2019s daughter, Loretta, who is nearly swallowed up by evil before she emerges as a preacher railing against sin and corruption. (A scene where the police chief physically disciplines his daughter for her past transgressions is uncomfortable and creepy and just plain bizarre.)
Oh, and let\u2019s not forget the KKK, conveniently inserted into the Florida timeline so we can root for Joe and his thugs, because hey, they\u2019re not as horrible as these dimwit inbred hate-filled clowns.
Zoe Saldana is wasted as Joe\u2019s loyal wife, whose main function is to worry about Joe and warn Joe he\u2019ll lose himself if he commits too many terrible deeds, and then to worry about Joe even more. Sienna Miller\u2019s Emma and Brendan Gleeson\u2019s policeman are two of the more interesting characters \u2014 but they\u2019re not with us for nearly enough scenes.
Chris Cooper\u2019s Chief Figgis is a complex man given to speeches about how he rubs elbows with the corrupt but is incorruptible, a righteous hypocrite with deep inner demons. Cooper\u2019s performance is raw and real and unsettling. It\u2019s as if he\u2019s in a better, more interesting, more challenging film.
Misgivings aside, I was enjoying \u201cLive by Night\u201d as a guilty pleasure of sorts and was on the verge of giving it a qualified recommendation until the last 10 minutes, which are equal parts predictable and way, way over the top.<\/p>\n

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\nSimilarity rank: 1.1\n<\/div>\n

Sentiment rank: -2.9<\/div>\n

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