Clip It: Each day, Jon Davis looks at the world of trailers, featurettes, and clips and puts it all in perspective.
In Live By Night, we've got the roaring 20s, gangsters, and explosions. There's also some spectacular vistas of what looks like the Florida Keys. Unlike Ben Affleck's previous movie Argo, there's not a strong story hook. But Ben Affleck is a hook all by himself. He's made some good to great movies, with material that is not extremely ambitious but often well executed.
His first movie Gone Baby Gone was an adaption of a Dennis Lehane novel. He's clearly a Lehane fan, as Live By Night will be Affleck's second adaptation of Lehane's excellent work. It's the kind of material that doesn't lend itself to a trailer. It's about character and subtle twists. And you can't really show that off in the trailer format.
However, Ben Affleck gets the benefit of the doubt. Is this movie going to win Oscars? Not necessarily. At least not if we consider the release date, which is in January. But Ben Affleck is a national treasure, and he's the current Batman. How can we deny him? The answer is that we can't. Let's see it.