I'm puttin' this whole town in my rear view mirror

Rating: 9/10 (24 September 2010)

According to Scott Fitzgerald, there are no second acts in American lives. Which just goes to show how little he knew; Ben Affleck could tell him otherwise, and it's easy to see what attracted him about this story. This is about a man searching for another chance, and a way of escaping the town that forms his prison.
It's also about robberies, of course. There are three in total, at the start, in the middle and at the end of the movie, but while all three are superbly staged and shot, they're more punctuation than the main point of the plot. It's really about Affleck's character, trapped by circumstance, by family and ultimately by blackmail, and his attempts to escape the very grim destiny represented by his father, who will have to 'die five times' before he gets out of prison.
It's also a romance, of a sort, and one that plays out believably. Without giving too much away, this may be the first movie I've seen that genuinely explores the consequences of a robbery for the victims, and Affeck's character sees for the first time the damage he does. There is no glamour here. Robbers damage people, even if they don't shoot anyone, and in the end they're as damaged as anyone else.
Everyone in the movie is great, especially Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall and Pete Postlethwaite in a cameo that moves from minor character to a force of pure, blackest evil. But in the end it's Affleck's film, as actor and director. He's earned his second chance, in spades. It's no surprise that he wanted to make a movie about a man who's looking to atone for his past sins. What will be a surprise, at least to some people, is how good - and how deep and serious - this film is.