Live by Night
Warner Bros. | Release Date: December 25, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
31
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJan 12, 2017
The film’s climax is tautly executed; the way everything plays out is a whirl of brutal, violent beauty. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 27, 2016
There’s enough here for half a dozen movies, and you can feel the severe overcrowding. But you can't keep your eyes off it. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerDec 27, 2016
The smoothness of the movie’s individual sequences bumps up against narrative raggedness, as Affleck labors to compress a sprawling, novel-ready narrative. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattDec 21, 2016
Live by Night is clearly Affleck’s love letter to classic pulp, and almost no noir touchstone goes unturned in its two-hour-plus run. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorJan 12, 2017
Centred on an uxorious guy who is building a gambling palace, Live by Night invites unfortunate comparisons with Martin Scorsese’s 1995 classic "Casino," in which the hero is tortured by his dishonest business and his unstable wife. Of course, Affleck isn’t Robert De Niro – delivering what was probably the last great dramatic role of his career – and Chris Messina as Coughlin’s rather bland sidekick most definitely isn’t Joe Pesci. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonJan 12, 2017
Still, it’s worth seeing for Affleck’s charismatic performance and for its vision of America as a land of greed, violence and political expediency that some moviegoers will find all too familiar. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 12, 2017
A curiously unfocused Prohibition-era gangster epic with some well-choreographed action scenes, a few provocative plot threads — but an increasingly meandering main story line that goes from intriguing to confounding to preachy to what exactly are we even watching here? Read full review
63
USA TodayBrian TruittJan 10, 2017
While the filmmaker conjures beautiful imagery and a subtle exploration of fathers and their children, the good stuff is too often caught up in a muddle of well-tread crime clichés. Read full review
63
New York PostSara StewartDec 22, 2016
It’s a sprawling plot that consistently teeters on the edge of unwieldiness, but Affleck’s assured directing, gorgeous cinematography by Robert Richardson and a who’s-who of Hollywood’s best character actors keep it mostly on track. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJan 19, 2017
Once Affleck’s Joe gets to Florida, Live by Night loses its pulse and you’re left with a lot of pale characters, secondhand plotting, and maybe second thoughts about the daffy idea of a liberal-humanist gang boss. Read full review
60
Time OutTomris LafflyDec 21, 2016
There’s a lot of cinema to admire here. And being reminded of the directorial talents of Affleck—undeniably a more accomplished filmmaker than an actor—is no minor event. Read full review
60
VarietyOwen GleibermanDec 21, 2016
The film is sharply written and crafted, lavishly photographed, impeccably acted, with lots of twists and turns — yet for all that, it somehow lacks zing. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyDec 21, 2016
Live By Night is solid enough entertainment, but it lacks the nasty edge or narrative muscularity to make it memorable. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 10, 2017
Live by Night is ambitious to a fault, with so much material and technical pizzazz that a cable miniseries format might have been a better way to go. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 19, 2017
It doesn’t help matters that the movie seems to end three times before it ends, and none of those ends are satisfying. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoJan 13, 2017
It’s a movie with effective scenes and character choices, they’re just not linked together in any way that makes them entertaining or emotionally resonant as a whole. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniJan 12, 2017
It's intriguing enough to suck you in, but confusing, fragmentary, frustrating. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 12, 2017
The damper here is Affleck, who appears to have been too concerned with placing himself just so, and then posing, so that nothing drew attention away from cinematographer Robert Richardson's pretty light. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 12, 2017
Affleck the screenwriter seems to have dumped the story onto the kitchen table and pushed it around like dough, hoping for some shape to emerge. It resists. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 12, 2017
The visual and performative elements are polished enough in Live by Night, but it lacks any sense of urgency. Read full review
50
MTV NewsAmy NicholsonJan 12, 2017
Live by Night loses energy whenever Sienna Miller’s not around. She makes this world with its showdowns about machismo and machine guns seem fresh, instead of the same old antler clashes. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenJan 11, 2017
Affleck sports plenty of snappy ’20s fashions, tailored double-breasted suits, often cream-colored, and elegant Borsalino-style fedoras. He’s dressed to kill for sure. Too bad his movie is so deadly dull. Read full review
50
ScreenCrushMatt SingerJan 10, 2017
Live by Night is a very mixed bag: Earnest, handsome, even passionate — and also slow, digressive, and a little bland. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 10, 2017
Live by Night gets lost almost from the moment it leaves Lehane and Affleck’s home turf, Boston. Read full review
50
The Film StageDan MeccaJan 5, 2017
There’s a whole lot going on throughout Live by Night. Somewhere in there is a crime film worthy of its intention. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 29, 2016
For all its sporadic philosophizing and belated stabs at romance, Live by Night is cold and inert at its core. That’s really the long and short of it. Read full review
50
Village VoiceBilge EbiriDec 23, 2016
Somewhere inside the 128-minute Live by Night is a reasonably solid 168-minute movie struggling to get out. No, that’s not a typo: You can sense the contours of an absorbing story as writer/director/star Ben Affleck’s slapdash and fragmented assemblage limps along. Most of the pieces are there, but they remain pieces. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisDec 22, 2016
Live by Night is a messy, unfocused movie about ambition, lost ideals, corrupt men and a thief whose idea of life on his own terms means pulling the trigger. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenDec 22, 2016
The movie is handsomely mounted with upscale production values, but it feels sluggish and disjointed. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedDec 22, 2016
Live By Night boils over with ambience and charged with details, from Roaring 20s flapper costumes to shootouts in period cars, but too many aborted narratives in Affleck’s lifeless screenplay intertwine, fanning the confusion, while other subplots are abandoned altogether. Read full review
50
We Got This CoveredJoseph HernandezDec 21, 2016
Overstuffed and disappointing, Live By Night wastes a strong supporting cast. It's not a total loss, but it doesn’t hold up against the rest of Affleck’s filmography. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Dec 21, 2016
Although Affleck's been a decent director - capturing real local color in "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town," building tension nicely in "Argo" - his work here is dim and dull. Live by Night may be about rum, but the pacing is like molasses. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnDec 21, 2016
At their worst, Affleck’s roles are stern and lifeless without soul, pretty sculptures with nothing inside. It was only a matter of time before he made a movie that embodied that lesser side of his career. Read full review
42
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerJan 11, 2017
In its unwillingness to settle on a singular approach, Live By Night undercuts the things that occasionally do work, and leaves it a film in search of a grander purpose. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyJan 12, 2017
The movie is immaculately dressed, but there’s a mannequin blandness lurking beneath: it’s all logistics, no guts. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJan 12, 2017
Live by Night is a mess. It’s got some interesting elements that Affleck, who wrote the script based on a Dennis Lehane novel, surprisingly can’t pull together. And, it must be said, his performance in the lead role isn’t up to snuff. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJan 11, 2017
Before a foot of film was ever shot on Live by Night, Affleck had already made a decision that would be the film’s undoing. He cast himself as the lead. Read full review
40
EmpireDan JolinJan 9, 2017
A handsome period drama with the occasional impressive flourish, but despite its rich subject matter, it's Affleck’s weakest film yet as a director. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 6, 2017
By the end of a long two hours, there’s not much life left. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonDec 21, 2016
This Prohibition-era drama deals limply with themes of loyalty, love, power and redemption, but not in any unique way, its emotional punch as vague as its cipher of a main character. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJake ColeJan 10, 2017
There's nothing at the center of Live by Night, no foundation of drama to ground the convoluted mash-up of so many genre tropes. Read full review
35
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeDec 21, 2016
The period detail is rich and worth watching, and there’s a deep bench of strong character actors to give the movie occasional jolts of life. Overall, however, the usually charismatic Affleck never manages to bring gangster Joe Coughlin to life. Read full review
33
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezDec 21, 2016
Labelling Live By Night a disaster is a little uncharitable; the baggy drama is perhaps more painfully mediocre than full-blown folly, but it’s close. Read full review
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