Continuing on from
Gone Baby Gone, in which
Ben Affleck goes 1 for 1 in films he's directed. So, does
The Town follow in the same footsteps or does he suffer from the sophomore jinx? It's the former as he knocks this one clear out of the park.
Fenway Park that is. I love my Heist flicks and this one is fantastic. The story is great, if not entirely original. You can see that they were inspired by
Heat. But the actors that populate the cast make this one snap, crackle and pop. A few of the actors from
Gone Baby Gone make their way over here as well to join in on the fun with
Ben, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm and the mindblowing performance by
Blake Lively. I was very impressed by everyone in the cast, especially
Renner and
Lively. But the top dog is definitely
Affleck who turns in his finest performance as an actor. I never thought I'd say that about him.
With this only being his second film
Affleck has directed up to this point (2010), it's clear that he has a certain style developing as a filmmaker. I love the way he shoots his scenes. If you look closely at both
Gone Baby Gone and
The Town, aesthetically they are very similar, but there are all those small "throwaway scenes" that I caught in both that another director would have bypassed altogether. With this being an exceptional Heist film, which I am a sucker for, this is a definite
Buy for me. I can't wait to check out
Argo.