Half a Turkey -Possible Spoilers

I thought for the first 45 minutes this was a full turkey. I even thought it was a mess, but it picked up in the Tampa segments, enough to hold some interest, especially in the KKK segments. Not a big fan of gangster movies anyway, but I remembered liking The Town, so decided to watch this when I couldn't find anything else on HBO Max.

So what was wrong? For one the plodding story early on, interspersed by improbable action scenes with lots of Tommy Guns and blood. And how did those two cop cars chasing Ben's car shoot so many bullets at him at close range without hitting Ben or blowing up the car? Then there's was Ben's wooden acting, which didn't help. He was better in Gone Girl and Argo, so I think he knows the rudiments of the craft. Ditto for Elle Fanning. She's been better. And the miscast of Zoe Saldana and her fake Cuban accent was so out of place.

Ben has directed before, and pretty well in Argo, so he knows how, I suppose. Maybe it all comes down to his dissipation from alcoholism and his aging, knowing his time has past. Maybe he thought he could hit a home run by adapting a sprawling Dehane novel, but taking on both the writing and directing of this movie proved beyond his capabilities. I don't know the answers, but I do know this wasn't close to being a good movie, backed up by critics and its flop at the box office and the problems it caused between Ben and Warner Bros Studios, which lost $75 million on it. Too bad, because Ben did show a lot of promise in his younger days with Good Will Hunting. Now it seems he's relegated to Justice League and hopes he can revive his Batman semi-success. Goodbye Ben.