Live By Night is a “lavish gangster epic” of the sort in which Hollywood used to specialize.
A throwback in more ways than one, it’s also an old-fashioned star vehicle for its director Ben Affleck.
Based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (as was Affleck’s directorial debut), Live By Night sees the Boston native back on home turf — albeit a century out of time— as Joe Coughlin, a smooth stick-up artist who returns to America after the Great War.…