"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. "
"Ben Affleck's Live by Night has great action and intriguing drama, but simply bites off too much to chew."
"The ... nagging hole in the thriller is Affleck himself, playing a tough guy with a sense of right and wrong, in a stolid performance that takes up a lot of space without packing the necessary gravitas."
"It's like seeing the ghost of a terrific movie: All the pieces are in place, yet as you're watching it (or thinking back on it afterwards), there doesn't seem to be quite enough there there."
"For a movie where so much occurs in the first 30 minutes, the pace still tends to drag and, at times, is as slow as hell. A lot of these problems can be attributed to Affleck's stilted screenplay that never quite finds the right tone."
"While "Live By Night" is surely stylish, and features a set of terrific performances, it's deprived of inspiration and misplaced in a year that was full of it."
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