Pretty good job

Rating: 8/10 (25 December 2010)

The film starts with a bank robbery. Classic. But already you appreciate the realism. Characters go fast, are professionals and are here to take the money, not to show off, they get nervous because someone alerted the police despite all the precautions they took. So comes the story that I don't intend to spoil, so I won't go further.
The film's story won't surprise you a lot anyway. As one of the criticizers say, it is a tentative of imitating "Heat" , "Point Break" and "L.A. Takedown". And this is absolutely right as the film clearly refers itself to "Heat" as one of the heros watches the film on TV :)
That said, this would be an error to reduce it to a bad mix-copy of those films. For me, this film achieves to take the value of them and render a pretty good job.
The film doesn't plunge into the easiness of "grand spectacle" with multi explosions, unrealistic stunt hot-pursuits or karate fights ... No, here, everything looks real. Even the photo shots of the city. The heros are not genius and just prepare their scores well.
This links the film directly to "Heat" . It doesn't reach the perfection of Mann's directoring in dialogs, musics and, how to say, the "dark atmosphere". But there are some really good inspired aspects of it. And in exchange we got some nice feelings of Boston and its atmosphere.
We also appreciate the way the film shows how the heros are bounded to their own destiny, even when they manage to take distance with it. Contrary to "Heat", it is even documenting here. We actually "understand" people's mind of Charlestown and their no-vision lifes.
The film ends on a good last scene. So, no deception.
Jeremy Renner is perfect here. Blake Lively really convincing.
Ben Affleck is OK but less convincing as a tight guy from Charlestown. But as a director, Ben Affleck does score this time.