Live by Night (2016)

A group of Boston-bred gangsters set up shop in balmy Florida during the Prohibition era, facing off against the competition and the Ku Klux Klan.

Director:

Ben Affleck

Writers:

Ben Affleck (screenplay by), Dennis Lehane (based on the novel by)

Stars:

Ben Affleck, Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson

3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ben Affleck	...	Joe Coughlin
Elle Fanning	...	Loretta Figgis
Remo Girone	...	Maso Pescatore
Brendan Gleeson	...	Thomas Coughlin
Robert Glenister	...	Albert White
Matthew Maher	...	RD Pruitt
Chris Messina	...	Dion Bartolo
Sienna Miller	...	Emma Gould
Miguel	...	Esteban Suarez (as Miguel J. Pimentel)
Zoe Saldana	...	Graciela
Chris Cooper	...	Chief Figgis
Titus Welliver	...	Tim Hickey
Max Casella	...	Digger Pescatore
Christian Clemenson	...	Ritz Investor
J.D. Evermore	...	Virgil Beauregard (as JD Evermore)

Storyline

Boston, 1926. The '20s are roaring. Liquor is flowing, bullets are flying, and one man sets out to make his mark on the world. Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city's most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw. But life on the dark side carries a heavy price. In a time when ruthless men of ambition, armed with cash, illegal booze, and guns, battle for control, no one-neither family nor friend, enemy nor lover-can be trusted. Beyond money and power, even the threat of prison, one fate seems most likely for men like Joe: an early death. But until that day, he and his friends are determined to live life to the hilt. Joe embarks on a dizzying...

---

Plot Keywords:

prohibition | love | revenge | kkk | betrayal | 

---

Taglines:

Joe was once a good man

---

Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence, language throughout, and some sexuality/nudity

Details

Official Sites:

Official Faceboook Official Site

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

13 January 2017 (USA)

Also Known As:

Vivir de Noche

Filming Locations:

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$108,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$33,000, 23 December 2016, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$10,377,558, 3 March 2017

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$16,706,524, 27 January 2017

Company Credits

Production Co:

Appian Way, Pearl Street Films, RatPac-Dune Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

129 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Atmos

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Character Maso Pascatore's original crew didn't include actor Kyle Waters Geller. Additional casting took place after Remo Girone had filmed his introductory scenes on the east coast.

---

Goofs

Joe's father says that one of the policemen who fell in the lake died "of hypothermia". That's a technical term not used outside of the medical community until about 1975. In 1920, he might have said the officer died "of exposure" or even "of the cold."

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Joe Coughlin: [narrating] In 1917, I signed up to fight the Huns in France. Good men died all around me, and I saw no reason for it. The rules we lived by were lies. And they didn't apply to those who made them. I swore If I made it home, I would never follow orders again. I left a soldier, I came home an outlaw.

---

Connections

Featured in Angels with Dirty Faces: The Women of 'Live By Night' (2017)

---

Soundtracks

Serrana
Written by Jesus 'El Nino' Alejandro (as Jesus A. Perez-Alvarez)
Performed by Jesus 'El Nino' Alejandro feat. Ariel Betancourt
Courtesy of LMS Records

User Reviews

Unfulfilled promise

Producer, director, writer and lead actor: Ben Affleck.

Let's look at those contributions one by one.

Producer. The film looks good. There's an expert team on both sides of the camera. But there's a problem with length. Also, it feels as though the adaptation from Dennis Lehane's novel has not sufficiently transformed what was on the page into cinematic story-telling.

Director. There are excellent action sequences, such as an exciting car-chase and a final shoot-out. As a director of actors Mr Affleck is strong: he elicits particularly striking work from Chris Messina, Elle Fanning, Remo Girone and Sienna Miller. Within scenes there's a reassuring sense of control of pace. But overall, there is a sense of the director being in thrall to the screenplay.

Writer. This is the weakest link. It feels in awe of its source material. I read that an entire strand of the book was removed for the purposes of the film, but this was not enough. The producer and/or the director needed to tell the writer to put it through another draft. Or put it in its current form on Netflix as a two-part drama.

Lead actor. A matter of taste, I guess. Mr Affleck's persona is always of a handsome man who knows he's handsome, and who is very pleased with himself about it. I find this insufferable in large doses. And there is a very large dose of it here. Mr Affleck's performances lack depth -- compare and contrast those of this amazing brother Casey. As far as I'm concerned, Mr B. Affleck is more a male model than an actor: in James Bond terms, he's a George Lazenby rather than a Daniel Craig. His best film performance is his self-parodying turn in 'SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE'. In LIVE BY NIGHT he is serviceable, nothing more. His director clearly couldn't get anything else out of him.

It's instructive to compare Ben Affleck to Clint Eastwood, who also has a limited -- maybe even more limited -- range as an actor. But Eastwood the director usually casts Eastwood the actor brilliantly. DIRTY HARRY, UNFORGIVEN,GRAN TORINO etc: who could be better? By contrast, there are many young actors who could have played the lead in LIVE BY NIGHT, and many writers who could have delivered a better screenplay, especially when guided by a strong producer and director. Time will tell whether Ben Affleck is as good in those last two departments as ARGO suggested he might be. The promise he showed in those areas in that film is not in evidence here.