Vivir de noche

También me parecía que vivo en el cielo, ahora y aquí, debía tener a su alrededor Sienna, Saldana y Ellen así arregladas. Affleck parecía disfrutar el encanto de las mujeres hermosas incluso más que los gánsteres. Captura a sus personajes con tanta caballerosidad que le perdonaremos todo lo demás. Lo cual es un intento de drama retro ambicioso, que quiso hacer más de lo que logra trabajar con la dramaturgia. Menos sería más. Por ejemplo, Camino a la Perdición de Mendes, que tenía menos personajes pero un objetivo claro, podría hablar de eso. Y lo persiguió con precisión y confianza. Affleck en Vivir de noche a veces pierde a las dos y nosotros disfrutamos del resultado y se mira bien, pero si nos acordamos de su Argo perfecto, deja la impresión de un fracaso creativo. (16.01.2017)

It was supposed to be a five-part miniseries or a three-hour film; then, it would benefit from the huge number of themes and great supporting characters. At the same time, the transformation of Affleck from a straight Boston scrounger to a mafia hood might not sound so unconvincing (at one point he assures us that he does not want to have anything to do with the world of organized crime; but after a moment he suddenly jumps into the position of a menacing boss). But when I think about the overload of storytelling, Live by Night is a fun, stimulating and time-relevant capture of a fragment from the history of the American South, which reflects a number of essential motifs. Solid work with period scenery, a good atmosphere, brisk action and a very fun side storyline and character - the main storyline needs more care and detail, but even so, I went along with the protagonist the entire time without any problems. The scene with KKK in a cigar factory is very, very relieving [75%]. (12.01.2017)

Everything I feared became a reality. You want a gritty gangster revenge flick, but instead you wait with fear in your eyes for a dressed-up Gatsby to pop around the corner in some lavish camera swoop. That's how "beautiful" Live By Night is, unfortunately, in this case. It does have a flair for pictorial composition, it’s well-acted with few exceptions, with some great roles given damn little space (Gleeson, Cooper). Unfortunately, thematically, it's a film that's not supposed to be so fancy, especially when right at the beginning you get a lively action set-piece like in Public Enemies. It is, after all, a gritty story from a harsh and unforgiving time, and not a poster-boy reminiscence of the golden 1930s. And that's exactly the point where Affleck screwed up, hand in hand with the script. He shows the twenties with poetics, in a haze of nostalgia that doesn’t fit. It called for shady businesses, down-to-earth characters, period hits and dirty streets, exactly how we like it in other films. Still, Affleck has a talent for directing and he can act, but hopefully, he will no longer write scripts. (14.01.2017)

I must say, Ben Affleck disappointed me in this film. Besides showing off his acting chops, which I don't enjoy much, he's just too macho here, and you don't really believe his emotions, so story-wise, it's quite boring, and also predictable. It jumps from topic to topic, from scene to scene, to keep from being boring. And yet it's boring. (07.04.2017)

Somewhere in there is a good film. Somewhere in the background, somewhere in the editing room. It's an hour longer, looks just as good and beautiful as what we got in the cinema, but besides those nice visuals, there are also functioning relationships between the characters and it has a story that doesn't rush anywhere and you can enjoy and have fun with it. Unfortunately, we got in the cinema evidently suffers from being brutally cut. Live by Night senselessly rushes forward, and instead of a modern gangster saga, we have twenty-minute episodes about dealing with mafia competition in Florida, then with the Ku Klux Klan, then with religious fanatics, and then it all ends. I felt like someone had played me a six-hour miniseries cut down to feature length, and I wasn't thrilled about it. (15.05.2017)