'Live By Night': An engrossing period drama

Film: "Live By Night"; Director: Ben Affleck; Cast: Ben Affleck, Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana, Chris Cooper, Remo Girone, Robert Glenister, Max Casella, Matthew Maher, Miguel J. Pimental, Titus Welliver and Anthony Michael Hall; Rating: ***1/2 Set in the 1920s post World War I, it is the tale of an honest policeman's son, Joe Coughlin, who returns home disillusioned as a soldier and vows to live life on his own terms - like an outlaw, never bowing to authority ever again.He starts out as a small time crook living in Boston and works independently along with his two childhood friends and abhors being called a gangster. A decade later, he is approached by the Irish gangster Albert White (Robert Glenister) to help out in the mob war against the Italians, headed by Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone). Joe declines initially, but how he gets absorbed in organised crime and his rise thereafter, forms the crux of the tale.