Home Video Catch Up: LIVE BY NIGHT

In many respects, Live By Night feels like a good movie struggling to become a great movie. Although it doesn't the achieve greatness or much in the way of cinematic depth, Ben Affleck still delivers a solidly entertaining gangster flick and its such a shame that it was rejected so heavily by critics and audiences.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like this movie quite a bit and I'd give it a modest recommendation when all is said and done. With that said, one can't truly appreciate the good, or even great, things about a film without acknowledging (or, better yet, seeking to improve) its flaws. And, without a doubt, the two biggest problems with this movie are pacing and story beats. While the majority of the film moves along at a rather well-balanced clip, the first act does feel like its in a bit too much of a hurry to get to the meatier parts of the story proper. Also, certain characters do have a tendency to exit the movie for noticeable stretches of time. Well, that and there are some parts of the story that felt like they should've been fleshed out more. Granted, this could be that the studio wanted a shorter running time* and a lot of scenes were left on the cutting room floor; but, until someone involved actually sheds some light on it, I guess we may never know if this was the case or not.

Still, those glaring flaws don't prevent it from being a pretty entertaining ride. The performances are great. The direction is borderline masterful (at this point, that's to be expected from Ben Affleck). The dialogue is snappy and I'll probably be quoting a few lines from this sometime down the road. But, what really deserves special mention is the film's cinematography. Look, I get that I tend to drone on and on about how pretty a film looks;  but, I'm sorry, guys. I'm just a sucker for a well-composed shot. And, quite frankly, Live By Night is absolutely chock-full of remarkable, expertly framed images.

Overall, while I do think this film would greatly benefit from an extended cut (and a 4K Blu-Ray release, major hint for Warner Brothers), Live By Night has too many good things about it to call outright bad.

LIVE BY NIGHT gets a...
NICE JOB, MAN! out of TEN

*It should be noted that important scenes getting cut for the theatrical release of any movie is a fairly common practice.