Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
A group of Boston-bred gangsters set up shop in balmy Florida during the Prohibition era, facing off against the competition and the Ku Klux Klan.
Ben Affleck's passion project adapting Dennis Lehane's novel feels disappointingly muddled in execution. The prohibition-era gangster story hits familiar beats without the distinction of the source material, juggling too many subplots — the KKK conflict, the Cuban romance, the preacher's daughter — without giving any of them proper weight. Affleck's direction is competent and the period production design is handsome, but the cinematography never achieves the visual poetry the material demands. The acting is serviceable with Affleck stoic to the point of blandness in the lead, though Zoe Saldana and Elle Fanning provide brighter moments. The ending deflates rather than satisfies, rushing through consequences that feel unearned. Overall a well-resourced but hollow entry in a crowded genre.