Live by Night (2016)

Ben Affleck directed and stars in Live by Night, a $65 million gangster epic based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. This movie really was not advertised well and consequently did disappointing business at the box office, as of this writing its grossed less then a third of its budget. There is A LOT of plot to this movie, I don't really want to begin summarizing beyond that fact that the story concerns prohibition and depression era gangsters, and the movie covers a lot of ground, a lot of years, and a lot of characters. Again given the mass of plot this movie conveys it does so with remarkable efficiency, I can't think of any story point or character that I thought was distractingly underdeveloped. The movie went in a number of directions I wasn't expecting, the production was very well mounted, the cast strong, with Chris Cooper and Elle Fanning as standouts, and there is some serious substance here. Not as good as L.A. Confidential, which was also based on a Dennis Lehane novel, but I think Live by Night is an underappreciated film who reputation I hope grows with time. ****