Review| Live By Night

Ben Affleck’s fourth directorial effort falls in one of those weird release spots where many listings show it as a 2016 film, but the wide release (and many limited releases) actually took place in 2017. It is also, for me, one of those weird films that cause me to question my impression on the entirety of a director’s work prior to it. In Affleck’s case we’re only talking about a total of four feature-length films. But the three before this are ones I enjoyed, Gone Baby Gone greatly so. Live By Night falls prey to many things which seem to be errors that a first-time director would make, not an academy award-winning one.

Joe Coughlin is a Bostonian of Irish descent making a living by robbing banks and bookies with a small group of friends in the booming 20’s. Through narration we’re told Coughlin is a WWI vet and he’s often shown in a more favorable light than those around him. He doesn’t shoot people, he won’t join the mob, he helps out the little guy, and he loves who he loves. Unfortunately he happens to love the girlfriend of the leader of the Irish mob in Boston. This relationship is used as leverage by the Italian mob, and Joe is thrust into a life of gang rivalries and quickly put into service as a rum-runner in Florida. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll understand that even in that short summary I’m leaving out about 100 minutes in a 128 minute film. This is a long movie, and I felt every minute.

‘Jam-packed’ is usually a term associated with summer blockbuster action flicks with lots of explosions, gunfire, and car-chases. When I use it here to describe this crime drama, it is not with such laudation. Where Affleck succeeded with films like Argo and The Town was in focusing on a straightforward story and dissecting the characters to understand their motivation and thought-process. With Live By Night, I can barely do that with the main character, and wouldn’t dream of trying it with any of the supporting cast save for perhaps Joe’s father Thomas Coughlin, satisfyingly underplayed by Brendan Gleeson. Thomas is a chief of police in Boston and must find ways to deal with his thief of a son. Had the film stopped and focused on this father-son dynamic for more than the first 30 minutes, I think a terrific story is possible. I’m actually even excited at the thought of Affleck and Gleeson playing off each other for a full 2 hours. As it is, this film thinks it’s an epic, but comes off as a jumbled mess of about 7 different stories, each partially told with mostly bad and sometimes cringingly cliché dialogue.

One aspect of the character of Joe Coughlin that became exhausting by the end of the film was his alleged moral superiority over all those who came against his endeavors. At first he was the salt-of-the-earth thief who wouldn’t join the murderous gangs. Then he’s the illegal rum-runner that wouldn’t sell narcotics or get into prostitution. Then he’s in love with an African-American woman and must fight off the KKK. Then he’s a would-be casino owner trying to talk some sense into religious fundamentalists of his day. Each of those things on their own are a fine opportunity for conflict, but our main character finding himself on the right side of history or morality in each one is a big stretch. On top of that, Affleck made few if any efforts to endear the audience to Joe so that we might cheer for his triumph rather than feel like we’re just rooting for the best, worst person on screen.

Though it has its problems, Live By Night serves as an example of the consequences of successive bad choices. Often when a young teen or young man gets into some serious trouble with the law, we’ll see an interview with the mother or very close member of the family explaining how “Johnny was such a good boy, he just got in with the wrong crowd.” Their sorrow overshadows the prospect that perhaps Johnny was the wrong crowd. I say this not to belittle such grief, but to highlight the fact that our choices have consequences. We all know this inherently, but our desires often muddy those very clear waters. We try and turn cracks of opportunity to bend rules and stretch the truth into gaping holes in which to jump through. We can imagine such a story taking shape for Joe. Son of a police officer, he rebels and gets with friends that magnify his inner desires. Robbing card games turns to robbing banks. An influx of wealth gravitates powerful and attractive people toward him, such as girlfriends of mob-bosses. Flippant, adulterous relationships lead to exposure to be leveraged against other people. The rest is history.

Your every-day reader of this review isn’t going to jump to robbing banks, but maybe we stretch the truth on our timesheet at work, and over the months that sprouts into missing deadlines and lazy performances. Or maybe tell a white-lie to our spouse that plants a seed of untruthfulness in the relationship and makes the next lie easier and easier. Joe put himself in situations where the light of day shining on his operations was a thing to be feared. He didn’t get to that point overnight, he got there by living in the darkness.