It can’t say much good about a film if you constantly wish you were reading the book on which it was based. There is great scope to Ben Affleck’s adaptation of Denis Lehane’s 2012 period crime novel. The film takes us from Chicago in the prohibition years to Ybor City, Florida where crime syndicates forged whole new empires. It buzzes with potentially fascinating characters.
The reliably charismatic Brendan Gleeson – who steals scenes just by minding his manners – plays an honest police officer embarrassed by his son’s improprieties. Sienna Miller, as the moll who brings the hero low, struggles gallantly with an accent which cannot decide if it’s unconvincingly from Derry or even less convincingly from Tipperary.
Most intriguing of all is Elle Fanning’s turn as marquee preacher Loretta Figgis. That character, a damaged demigod who may or may not believe her own hokum, could tell us so much about the United States on the cusp of its imperial pomp. You want to see the film, right? Maybe you want to read the book?
The pieces are all there, but the film-makers fail to pull those elements together into a coherent whole. It doesn’t help that, once again, Ben Affleck, the talented director, has cast Ben Affleck, the limited actor, in the central role.
Now boxier and less flexible than before, this version of Affleck reminds us why, before he reinvented himself with Argo and Gone Baby Gone, mean people like me used to make unfair fun of his rectilinear head and speak-your-weight voice.
The great noir actors such as Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum had twists in their noses and creases in their asymmetric faces. Affleck looks as if he has stepped – only mildly animated – from a 1950s cigarette ad.
The whole picture suffers from a similar excess of gloss. The hats look box-fresh. The cars seem to have come straight from the dealer. Robert Richardson's cinematography – blue in Illinois, sandy in Florida – is far too pretty for its own good. The film strives for Roman Polanski's Chinatown, but sadly ends up closer to Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy. On the road, buddy.
