Firstly if critics had read the book maybe the reviews for this film would not have been as scathing. However at over 2 hrs this is not the 3 hr version that Ben Affleck was hyping up even before filming began. If he would have given us the 3 hr version then this would have been his magnum opus!
That said, the film is still very solid and 90% faithful which is a brilliant book written by Dennis Lehane who also wrote Mystic River.
I read the book after seeing the film and was very surprised how faithful this film was to the source material. The beginning of the book has Joe Coughlin's feet cemented in stone ready to be thrown in the sea (this was not in the film, as this is also the climax of the book and the film's climax is different)
The prison sequence in the book after Joe's arrest after the bank robbery takes up about 3 chapters in the book. This is where he meets the Italian Mob Boss (In the film he meets him when he gets out of jail). In the film after his arrest his prison time is explained in voice over. And then there is sequence in the book when he helps the cubans seize weapons form a cargo ship. Besides this and the ending where the shootout in the book takes place outside, in the film it takes in the hotel the rest of the film is very faithful to the book. Even the dialogue in the film is taken straight from the words from the book. The car chase after the bank robbery literally is exactly how it is explained in the book so to are scenes with The KKK leader at the cafe. That scene plays out exactly how it is described in the book.
So even though it is a flawed film I do believe that the Director's Cut would have had at least another 15 mins of the extended prison sequence from the book. However, this remains an underrated crime film!
That said, the film is still very solid and 90% faithful which is a brilliant book written by Dennis Lehane who also wrote Mystic River.
I read the book after seeing the film and was very surprised how faithful this film was to the source material. The beginning of the book has Joe Coughlin's feet cemented in stone ready to be thrown in the sea (this was not in the film, as this is also the climax of the book and the film's climax is different)
The prison sequence in the book after Joe's arrest after the bank robbery takes up about 3 chapters in the book. This is where he meets the Italian Mob Boss (In the film he meets him when he gets out of jail). In the film after his arrest his prison time is explained in voice over. And then there is sequence in the book when he helps the cubans seize weapons form a cargo ship. Besides this and the ending where the shootout in the book takes place outside, in the film it takes in the hotel the rest of the film is very faithful to the book. Even the dialogue in the film is taken straight from the words from the book. The car chase after the bank robbery literally is exactly how it is explained in the book so to are scenes with The KKK leader at the cafe. That scene plays out exactly how it is described in the book.
So even though it is a flawed film I do believe that the Director's Cut would have had at least another 15 mins of the extended prison sequence from the book. However, this remains an underrated crime film!