Directed by: Ben Affleck
Written by: Ben Affleck (screenplay, adapted) Dennis Lehane (novel)
Cast: Ben Affleck, Zoe Saldana, Elle Fanning, Chris Messina, Chris Cooper, Sienna Miller
Swift shot: I have never heard of Joe Coughlin, but after I watched Live By Night, I went home and researched all about him. I was hoping he was a real figure from history. Sadly, he is a work of fiction created by famous Boston author, Dennis Lehane. No one in history could be as magnanimous as the great Joe Coughlin (Affleck). Coughlin is sure to be an instant cinematic classic character along the lines of other famous Warner Bros. gangsters of yesteryear. I can easily see him in The Great Movie Ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Joe Coughlin is a stick-up man shortly after serving in World War I. He is done kissing rings, and he decides that he isn’t a gangster, even though he really is. He just hasn’t sworn allegiance to any boss, yet. Joe has fallen hard for Emma Gould (Miller), the property of Irish gang boss Albert White (Robert Glenister). She’s White’s to do with as he pleases, and the hell with any punk like Joe Coughlin to come along and steal her from him.
As the heat picks up on Joe and Emma, Joe decides to pull just one last big heist with his crew, but it has fatal consequences that can’t be undone. After the heist goes horribly wrong, Joe is separated from his crew, and White decides to kill both Joe and Emma.
The heist scene leads to easily the best gangster shootout car chase I have ever seen in a theater. If you can’t find any other reason to see Live By Night in theaters, trust me, the chase is worth the ticket price!
Joe is “rescued” by his Police Captain father, Thomas Coughlin (Brendan Gleeson), if you can call being turned over to a barrage of Boston police officer billy-clubs a rescue. Joe ends up doing time for the robbery, and right before he gets out of prison, fate exacts a cruel toll on his family.
Now Joe ends up working for the Italian mob, and he’s been told to take over in Tampa, where he sets up shop in Ybor City, a mostly mixed-race community on the outskirts of Tampa that is still pretty much nothing but tattoo shops to this day. Joe excels at what he does, and he makes the acquaintance of a very rigid Police Chief, Figgis (Cooper) who is convinced he isn’t corruptible, as he looks the other way while Joe runs rum up to Boston for the Italians.
While in Ybor, Joe meets the lovely Graciela (Saldana) who is sending money back to Cuba to help her people overthrow a corrupt government. He is smitten with her, and they soon shack up and everything is basically jake for Joe, as he is always able to outsmart and outgun White, who is running his own operation for the Irish mob in Miami.
But, once White hires a KKK soldier to interfere with Joe’s operations, it becomes a problem. Chief Figgis is related to the monster, by marriage. Things get complicated, as Figgis’ daughter, Loretta (Fanning) starts to cause problems for the Italians hell bent on building a casino in Ybor . . . which was actually Joe’s savvy idea. He sees prohibition is on the way out.
Joe’s incredibly pragmatic partner, Dion Bartolo (Messina) thinks Joe should just kill Loretta, and probably Figgis too, to be honest. But, that’s Joe’s biggest problem, he thinks he is the noble character, the hero, in a story rife with violence and betrayal. As ghosts from his past come back to both torment and save him, the story unfolds as a reminder that what you put out in the world will always come back to you . . . in the end.
Ben Affleck always seems to do his best work directing films, and Live By Night is no exception. A few times I forgot I was watching Ben Affleck, and many of the other actors, and was simply enthralled by the characters. It’s a testament to Affleck that he is an actor’s director, and he doesn’t settle for mediocre work. Each performance is believable, right down to the grunt gangsters and lowly background performers.
Live By Night is a gangster film for our generation, told by one of our own, and is a stunning piece of American cinema.
