No, this is not a review of the 2016 Ben Affleck directorial effort Live by Night. I'm not sure if many people confuse the 1948 crime drama They Live by Night with that later Affleck movie considering how few people are even aware of Live by Night's existence. Regardless, this is not a review of a Ben Affleck movie. Nor is this a review of Run All Night, a Liam Neeson/Joel Kinnamon action film. Remember that March 2015 film? That represented one of the last times Neeson was seen as a big enough box office draw for major American movie studios to put money into his Taken knock-off's (his subsequent features have been independently financed).
Now that we know what we aren't talking about, let's talk about our central subject, They Live by Night. Directed by Nicholas Ray from a screenplay by Ray and Charles Schnee and based on a 1937 novel by Edward Anderson, They Live by Night concerns two young people who have some kind of familial (either by blood or by choice) connection to older outlaws. For Bowie (Farley Granger), the two men who sprung him out of prison, Chicamaw (Howard Da Silva) and T-Dub (Jay C. Flippen) are like his brothers now. This duo needs Bowie's help to pull off some new bank robberies and that means they aren't gonna let Bowie go under any circumstances.
That's a shame because Bowie is an innocent man who was wrongly convicted of murder. He never wanted to be part of this crime world, he'd rather start his own crime-free life with Chicamaw's niece, Keechie (Cathy O'Donnell). Once Bowie is finally free of Chicamaw and T-Dub, he'll do anything to spend the rest of his days with Keechie in a remote cabin...even if it means getting sucked back in for one more robbery.
If there's a central gripe to be had with They Live by Night, it's that it's a bit too fast of a motion picture. The story starts out in media res with Bowie just getting broken out of jail, looking for a place to lay low and things never slow down from there. This has its advantages, including ensuring that the proceedings never get boring. But I did yearn for some slower-paced scenes to fully appreciate the blossoming romance between Keechie and Bowie. This romance is such a central part of Ray and Schnee's screenplay but it tends to get glossed over. Just a few more moments where Keechie and Bowie could have been allowed to breathe would have helped the proceedings reach that next level of emotional engagement.
Aside from its overly hurried tendencies, They Live by Night is a well-crafted feature, especially in how it imbues such a tragic quality to this romantic crime yarn. The monochromatic color of the movie, the sorrowful performances of Graner and O'Donnell, Leigh Harline's haunting score, they all convey the idea that this central romance can only result in inevitable doom. Ray and Schnee's script playing off Bowie's third-act decision to return for one more heist especially seeps with powerful tragedy. He may be going out there for what he perceives to be the right reasons but by stepping back into the world of robberies, Bowie has clinched his doom.
Such a scene exemplifies a level of welcome moral complexity that makes They Live by Night so interesting to watch. Bowie may not have committed his initial crime but he still ends up participating in violent robberies alongside Chicamaw and T-Dub. In order to secure his freedom as an innocent man (Bowie needs money to pay for a lawyer who can help prove his innocence), Bowie must become the kind of criminal he was incorrectly convicted as. Farley Granger imbues the character of Bowie with such a genuine yearning for freedom that it makes his increasing level of moral transgressions all the more harrowing to watch. They Live by Night is most certainly not a 2016 Ben Affleck directorial effort. What it is, though, is an exceptional crime drama with a stinging sense of tragedy.
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