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.
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Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.
So much average
Good movie but grossly overrated
Don't listen to the negative reviews
Skip this disaster and just read Dennis Lehane's novel, because a substantial portion of this film is just Affleck reading it to you via voice-over narration while random shots spill by in the background; the film at times even bypasses interesting plot threads and resolutions with a speedy narrative wrap-up. It fails on the most basic of levels, that being that of an actual film that tells its story by showing, not telling. Anything that could remotely be praised about this heap of trash is wiped away by the fact that Affleck reads. At the audience. For the entire film. Avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid.
Very good story, well done, well played. Better than average. Bandits are not homer-sexual in this. Romantic view far from reality, but good as a film.
I thought it was just me, because I'm not much into gangsta movies, action and violence. But for a gangsta movie, this one was a lollipop version. Ben Affleck's character is incredibly boring in this movie. His voice and face doesn't change throughout the whole 2 endless hours. There's no real story, no real motives, you don't care for any of the characters and in the end you just hope everyone dies so the movie will finally be over. I usually have problems witch catching up in gangsta movies, because there are many characters, the movie pace is fast and so on. But even though I actually fell asleep a couple of times during this movie, I didn't really miss anything of the story and knew until the end everything that happened. Because nothing really happened! If you make such a slow movie, then at least invest some time in developing the characters, if not the story.
Had very low expectations for this, but it was a lot better than I thought it would be. Definitely one of my favorite gangster films, up there with things like Layer Cake. I kept waiting for it to get bad, wear out its welcome, but it was soundly made. My favorite part was the car chase, well done, with 30's era cars. That was a nice change of pace.