The writing of American novelist Dennis Lehane is particularly well suited to screen adaptation. His propulsive narratives, bullet-hole plot points and a knack for capturing the fractious banter of blue-collar Boston all combine into that rarest of assets: authenticity. It’s for this that Lehane tends to attract big-ticket directors hoping for prestige projects: Clint Eastwood (Mystic River, 2003), Ben Affleck (Gone Baby Gone, 2007) and Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island, 2010).
But that crucial authenticity is missing from this newest adaptation of a Lehane novel. For his latest outing as a director, Affleck returns to Lehane’s work, this time the 1920s Boston and Florida-set gangster novel Live By Night. But there’s something too sanitised and synthetic about this picture. It feels like a facsimile of prohibition America, a Vegas casino recreation rather than the real thing, lacking the grit and spit and sawdust of a country hurtling into the Great Depression. This filters through into the music choices: Cuban salsa works well to capture the free-spirited swing of Florida, but there is too much generic musical mulch that adds little to the film.
Affleck stars in the film as well as writes and directs. His performance, as Irish outlaw-turned-gangster Joe Coughlin is solid enough, but the standout turns are in cameo supporting roles. Brendan Gleeson, playing Joe’s police chief father, is tremendous in a few early scenes. Also impressive is Sienna Miller as chippy Irish moll Emma Gould, Joe’s near-fatal weakness. But the sparks of life that come with these scenes are soon lost in a bloated, overstuffed picture that relies too heavily on genre cliches.
