Good in parts, but characters don't ring true

Rating: 4/10 (5 December 2010)

Thank the Lord Ben Affleck wasn't allowed to make the four hour cut. It's too long as it is. But this means the drastic cut makes the plot-line jumpy, and one presumes it has shortened character development.
No-one could seriously care about, or identify with, any of the characters, either the cops, the robbers or the Rebecca Hall character, and so the movie falls down at the most basic level.
The bank robbery and car chase sequences are enjoyable, but then again so what. Most robbery and chase scenes tend to be so, but that doesn't make it worth two hours of your time or money.
There can be absolutely no comparison to the French Connection, as some people here make. Doyle and his sidekick were driven, dedicated cops against the harm done by Charnier and his heroin traders.
But nobody could care less about the banks who are robbed (especially nowadays, so the special agent played by John Hamm may as well be a bank collection agent for all we care. The point is made more than once in the film, when they say things along the lines of 'it's not your money, don't be a hero'.
And the criminal characters live such crappy lives, you wonder what they do with all the money. At least in the Sopranos, Tony lives in a big, comfortable house, and his wife has lots of expensive jewellery and high-end vehicles, though of course his family lacks the respectability that property level, which is why is wife is so unhappy.
Here, these guys just live in grim apartments and drink in down at heel neighbourhood bars, so what's the point of taking the risk that you'll end up in jail for the rest of your life? And none of them seem to have any identifiably different personality from the others, apart from the psycho Florist, played as an Ulsterman by Peter Poslethwaite.
And a young bank manager would never in the world associate with the Affleck's working class character, even in America.
I think this film will sink without trace. Seems to me Affleck was over-indulged by the studio.