Also discussed this episode: Prince of Darkness (1987), Cheap Thrills (2014), Train to Busan (2016), Creepers (1985), Death Race 2050 (2017), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
The review duo that sleeps by day and CrossFits by night! Adam: Welcome to "Reserved Seating." I’m Adam Riske.
Rob: And I’m Rob DiCristino.
Adam:Live by Night is the fourth directorial effort from the multi-talented Ben Affleck and his second adaptation of a Dennis Lehane novel.
Rob: It tells the story of Joe Coughlin (Affleck), a Prohibition-era (era) stick-up man caught between warring mafia families in Boston. After running afoul of Irish boss Albert White (Robert Glenister), Coughlin renounces his vow of neutrality and joins up with rival Italian boss Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone), who sends him and his partner Dion (Chris Messina) to supervise their rum smuggling operations in Florida. Coughlin then faces-off with corrupt cops, the KKK, and an assortment of other threats vying to bring him down.
Adam: In this clip (), Affleck and Messina discuss partnership terms with a Cuban faction in Tampa, which includes Zoe Saldana, who later develops to be a new love interest for our lead. Live by Night has a lot of scenes like this one of people talking while Ben Affleck seems like he is either just waking up or falling asleep.
Rob: I like this scene. It makes it seem as though Live by Night has real interpersonal conflicts and dramatic stakes. It’s one of two or three in the whole film.
Adam: For a movie with so many characters, there is very little development to any of them. The movie starts out somewhat disappointingly based on Affleck’s previous directorial efforts (Gone Baby Gone, The Town, Argo), but at a certain point Live By Night became clearer to me and I found myself enjoying it for what it is - a trashy gangster movie like Mobsters or Hoodlum. The trouble is that my expectations were initially set higher because of Affleck’s previous directing pedigree. I had a lot of fun watching Live by Night, maybe even more the nuttier it got. It feels almost like an entirely different film in each and every scene. By the time Chris Cooper is shooting two guns and screaming “Repent! Repent!” like a 10th billed actor in a Wild West show, I was laughing out loud and having a pretty great time. I can’t say Live by Night is a success, but I may have enjoyed this movie more than anyone else on Earth.
Rob: Well, here it is. Our first fight. You absolutely enjoyed Live by Night more than I did. It’s a tonal disaster, like you said. A big, sprawling gangster epic has to have a strong handle on who these characters are, what they’re doing, and why we should care. This film was frankly just grating and boring, and I say that as a lifelong Affleck apologist. I really think he missed the mark on this one.
Adam: I don’t know if we’re going to have as big of a fight as you think because I don’t disagree with any of what you said, except for maybe that it’s boring. I did have a beer and some boneless buffalo wings before the movie, so maybe that factored into my enjoyment of Live by Night. Did you find it distracting that Ben Affleck was so damn wide that he looked like he barely fit on-screen? Talk about period-inappropriate. He looked like CrossFit Corleone.
Rob: Now that you mention it, my experience may have been ruined by the couple in my theater who were talking literally at full volume the entire film. It made it really hard to focus on whatever the hell Brendan Gleeson was saying half the time. As for Affleck, I honestly think he miscast himself in this role. He’s a forty-year-old man built to smash people with toilet seats and yet I’m supposed to relate to him as the scrappy upstart? It would have been nice to have seen his character built up through some backstory involving the war or a few more bits with the Brendan Gleeson character. There’s this thematic interest in “changing who you are” that might have been nicely served there.
Adam: Every interaction Gleeson has with Affleck in the movie is basically “You’re a garbage person but I’m not going to do anything about it. See you Sunday!”
Rob: How about that dinner scene where he tells Sienna Miller, “If my son likes you, you must be horrible!” Thanks, Dad!
Adam: I want to get back to what you said about Affleck being miscast. Absolutely! We are led to assume he’s deceitful and cunning, but every scene is him playing it in the same flat note. It’s like he succeeded in Tampa because he was too dull to notice. Maybe Affleck bit off more than he could chew by producing-writing-directing and starring in Live by Night. I’ll say this, though: I’d take all of this, whatever this is, over his other garbage picture The Accountant from last year. Rob: You know that isn’t fair. The Accountant has Anna Kendrick, so I’m beholden to it. Anyway, yeah, Affleck definitely seems overwhelmed here. Again, the classic gangster formula: You’ve got all these moving parts and fun characters, but they never intersect or affect each other to create meaningful change in the people involved. Without getting into spoilers, this film could have used fewer female characters whose mandates were “stand around,” and more with something to actually do. I liked Chris Cooper and Elle Fanning a lot, but they barely had any scenes together. And we never get to see what actually changes Affleck’s character because all we know about him is that he’s built like a brick shithouse, he’s very sleepy, and he loves him some Zoe Saldana. I couldn’t understand him, so I couldn’t understand the film. Anyway, what did you think of the whole KKK subplot? That scene in the cigar factory with the Grand Wizard guy was my one moment of joy in the whole picture. We should have had a lot more fun with that thread.
Adam: I didn’t have a problem with it. They’re portrayed as detestable and a lot of them get killed. I was satisfied.
Rob: “A lot of people got killed...I was satisfied.” -- Adam Riske, F This Movie!
Adam: You bet I was. Also, don’t misquote me…some of the words were wrong. Slap your hand with the ruler I gave you.
Rob: Speaking of slapping, the whole Elle Fanning subplot with the religion stuff is a perfect example of how Affleck’s development of his own character really fails. Like at the coffee shop: she’s sharing all these deep existential feelings that are supposed to pivot his character or introduce something new, but it’s hard to tell at any given time what particular conflict he’s feeling pressure from because he refuses to emote or, you know, say and do things. I had no idea where his head was at or what I was supposed to feel.
Adam: He’s sleepy from CrossFit. Rob: Those giant tires on chains aren’t going to pull themselves.
Adam: So you’re voting Mark Off?
Rob: My love for Ben Affleck is secondary to my responsibility to the public, Adam. Mark Off.
Adam: Every part of me says “vote Mark Off.” To hell with it. “Mark Ahn” for Live by Night. It’s not one of my favorite Ben Affleck roles or movies, but I admire the guy and I’m more with this one than not. Rob: That’s the spirit. Live free or die hard, dammit.
Adam: I loved that in the last 10 minutes of Live by Night it could have ended on any scene and it would have made just as much thematic sense as any other.
Rob: But we needed to pay off that subplot with his brother that was apparently happening in the movie! And the chess board because symbolism! Maybe he was just so sleepy he didn’t realize he left all that in. Because of all the CrossFit. Alright, I’ll stop.
Adam: Join us next week as I try to get my critical bearings back and we review Split, the latest thriller from M. Night Shyamalan starring James McAvoy.
Rob: I’m still never sure if it’s cool to like M. Night Shyamalan again or not.
Adam: He’s made some bad movies but also some great ones. We should give him the benefit of the doubt. Until next time… Rob: These seats are reserved.
Also discussed this episode: Jackie (2016), Doctor Strange(2016), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), Nocturnal Animals (2016), Love Actually (2003), Band of the Hand (1986), Joysticks (1982), Fresh Meat (2012), Zoolander 2 (2016)
“Sooner or later, different scares people.” It's easy to see why developmental disorders and super-heroism are intrinsically connected in popular culture. Most superheroes are “enhanced” versions of humanity; they’re us, but with that one extra trait that makes them extraordinary. It’s that extra bit that helps them slay the dragons that consume the rest of us, that extra bit that makes us admire them. Through focus and training, they hone their supposed defects into strengths. It’s only natural for us to extend that same admiration to those on the spectrum: we celebrate Sherlock Holmes, Raymond Babbit, and Abed Nadir for bringing these disorders into the limelight in the service of good, and they’re just a few of the powerful, intuitive, and emotionally-intelligent characters who use their unique skills to help us learn more about each other and ourselves.
Christian Wolff, the ass-kicking number-cruncher played by Ben Affleck in Gavin O’Connor’s The Accountant, aims to be the next. He’s Bourne, Wick, and Reacher all rolled into a socially-awkward, Batman-shaped cocktail of pain. But while we might one day look forward to the continued adventures of The Pocket Protector, his first film fails to deliver on its considerable promise and falls victim to convoluted plotting and weak characterization.
Christian Wolff has spent his whole life separated from others. His intense focus prevents him from leaving tasks unfinished and makes him prone to uncontrollable fits of violence. Foregoing traditional therapy, his father (a celebrated army officer) chose instead to immerse his son in the sensory hazards that were crippling him. Through discipline, he felt, he could overcome the challenges that doom many in his position to less-than-fulfilling lives. Today, Wolff runs a small accounting firm out of a strip mall in suburban Chicago, the medium-sized cherry on top of a quiet, unassuming existence. But U.S. Treasury Department chief Raymond King (J.K. Simmons) has spotted Wolff in photographs with some of the world’s dirtiest dealers and enlists analyst Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to track down the mysterious shadow man. We soon learn that Wolff has parlayed his skill with numbers into a clandestine accounting operation for the world’s terrorists. His next assignment is uncovering a conspiracy within the Living Robotics company, run by billionaire Lamar Blackburn (John Lithgow), where a junior accountant (the fierce, radiant, and effervescently-perfect Anna Kendrick) has found evidence of fraud. Also, Jon Bernthal leads a squad of assassins who will become important for unrelated reasons later on.
The Accountant is a film at war with itself: sometimes it wants to be a thoughtful meditation on trauma, other times it wants to be an ensemble action thriller. Though we’re led to believe that Wolff has a clear and immovable moral code, we’re never quite sure what it is or who crosses it or when. Flashbacks highlight the most formative moments of his past (many of them extremely well-constructed), but it’s never clear how those memories influence what’s currently at stake. There’s an interesting thread about how we’re often too weak or ill-equipped to cross certain emotional or social boundaries, but that isn’t really paid off, either. Still another thread deals with family, another with romantic love, and a few with ethics and responsibility, but none of them fit together with any real sense of unity. We’re often introduced to conflicts after they’ve already been resolved, and there’s a third act exposition dump that brings the entire thing to a screeching halt.
This is all the more frustrating because there are moments of genuine surprise, moments where the film plays with our expectations and then reveals something that surpasses them all. The action is brutal and smart (Wolff has his own distinct punch sound, a heavy thud that betrays his presence like the shark in Jaws). It’s well-shot (almost no shaky-cam, thankfully) and even plays with the frame a bit, giving us some insight into how Wolff sees the world. There’s a lot of strong, skilled filmmaking here, but the material never quite lives up to the design.
By far its greatest sin, though, is wasting a stellar cast. Affleck continues his Downey-esque rise from the Hollywood ashes, delivering a Christian Wolff who is clearly handicapped but never pathetic. He leans into his trademark oafishness in a big, friendly giant sort of way, which leads to some great moments. It would have been interesting to see how he navigates a world outside his comfort zone, but we never get there. It might have been fun to see his sexual tension with Kendrick’s Dana Cummings transform into some kind of lasting friendship, but we never get there, either. They’re both pushed to the side in favor of a federal investigation subplot that has absolutely no effect on the outcome of the story whatsoever. Simmons and Addai-Robinson do some quality acting, but their thread is the most mind-boggling waste of time in the entire film. There’s a moment of celebration in the last few minutes in which we genuinely need to be reminded what was at stake and what we’re supposed to be celebrating. John Lithgow’s role might have evoked his De Palma days with a bit of tweaking, but he (along with the great Jeffrey Tambor) are sorely underwritten and lack real story purpose. Jon Bernthal is having a lot of fun in his own direct-to-video action movie, but he doesn’t leave us with very much in this one.
The Accountant will ultimately be remembered as a point along a very positive transition line from the Post-Bourne Era (era) to the Post-Wick Era (era) of studio action films. It’s slick and fun and full of all the belt-fu and headshots you could ask for. Wolff is brutal and calculating, which is great, but there’s not enough character here to excuse the poor plotting. The film’s core ideas are fumbled with indecisively, as if it’s trying to have its cake and your cake and then all the cake without finishing any of the cake. Not least of all its problems is that it never quite figures out what it has to say about autism or those affected by it. While the preceding two hours seem to advocate a head-first dive into the real world and all its punishing indifference, the film’s short coda embraces the touchy-feely therapy that Wolff’s father rejected to begin with. One scene suggests that Wolff has rid himself of his demons by embracing friends and family, but we’re not given any indication that those relationships will be maintained. The Accountant is never quite sure what it wants to say, so it ends up saying nothing at all. Perhaps what the film really needed was a stronger focus on Anna Kendrick, or maybe even Anna Kendrick.
