Movie Review: 'Live By Night'

Ben Affleck directs and stars in a new Prohibition Era gangster film, "Live By Night." Spectrum News film critic Neil Rosen filed the following review.

Based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, Ben Affleck writes, directs, and stars in "Live By Night."

Affleck plays Joe Coughlin, a World War I vet who returns to his hometown of Boston and enters a life of crime. When the Irish mob boss he's working for discovers he's having an affair with his girlfriend, played by Sienna Miller, he nearly has Coughlin killed.

Coughlin winds up working for a rival Italian gangster and becomes a kingpin, running his Florida bootleg rum business.

It's a flawed and overly ambitious film, but it's very entertaining. It's also beautifully filmed, as the attention to 1920s and 30s period detail is superb.

As Coughlin, Affleck tries to have it both ways but is not very convincing playing a bad guy with a conscious.

His performance is perfunctory, and he doesn't have a lot of chemistry with Florida flame Zoe Saldana.

But many of the supporting performances are terrific, including Brendan Gleeson as Coughlin's police officer dad, Chris Cooper as a Tampa lawman, and Elle Fanning as Cooper's evangelical daughter.

Affleck borrows liberally from many other gangster films. His Mafia boss, for example, is right out of "The Godfather."

But despite its flaws, its positive attributes overcome its negative ones. Maybe it doesn't quite gel into a perfect film, but it's still worth watching as the storyline and fate of the main character do manage to grab you, along with several captivating scenes. Overall, it's a fun ride.