Ben Affleck directs himself, Brendan Gleeson and Elle Fanning in this adaptation of the Dennis Lehane’s doorstop thriller about a decent man who controls a Florida city during Prohibition for the Italian mob. 

Affleck and Lehane back together again. Nothing could go wrong. Then I saw the trailer and it all felt a little Dick Tracy… did I flinch? Nah, it’s Affleck and Lehane. Nothing could go wrong. Then the duff reviews came in, and I don’t read reviews before seeing a movie… but sometimes the cacophony of glimpsed at 2 star ratings manage to distract you with their consistency and regularity. Did I stumble on my way to the ticket counter? Nah, it’s Affleck and Lehane. Nothing could go wrong. And the first 20 minutes of period Boston bank robberies, treacherous molls and Gleeson tearing up the screen as Affleck’s hard cop Dad… and I was relieved. It’s Affleck and Lehane. “Nothing has gone wrong.” I whispered to myself. But then things went wrong. And it is hard to put your finger on exactly what while you are watching… except you soon realise as Affleck is passively on the sidelines of various cliched subplots that squirm around each other, trapped in the beautiful two hour bucket, wrestling each other for air… just how boring it all is. Every now and again an impressive exchange of acting or gunfire wriggles free of the bucket, and slithers away, but in the main it’s just all writhing up there on screen, becoming more tangled and indistinguishable. Aside from costume and set dressing, it all feels lacklustre. It feels like everyone thought this was such a sure thing that no effort needed to be made to excel. It feels constrained by 120 minutes of running time, like Gangs of New York there are scenes edited to cut away so quickly you wonder what the point of including them was, and you hypothesise about a longer cut that might give all this unoriginal murmuration just a few extra seconds per moment to find its sure footing. Like watching a series recap of Boardwalk Empire, then some deleted scenes, then another series recap without ever getting to enjoy a well paced, keenly structured episode. You’ll never find me Affleck bashing, not Affleck the director, nor Affleck the movie star, but either on set hubris or some unspoken of studio constriant in the edit booth has hobbled what should have been movie gold.

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