Upon release from the hoosegow Joe takes up where he left off. That’s all Lehane’s doing, and Affleck has wisely left those ingredients intact. One of the pleasures of this film is that some major characters vanish - I won’t reveal who - then show up later on to add both surprise and depth to the story. The results here include a whole lot of violence, the strange experience of watching some beautiful vintage autos get wrecked up in a car chase (one of the reasons this is so successful at being a realistic period film, maybe the best since “Hard Times”), and Joe starting life over again behind bars.

But before Joe and Emma can skip town together, he has one last bank job to do. Complications ensue, involving, yes, that woman: Emma (an unrecognizable Sienna Miller). You just know that’s not going to hold for long, and in short order, via some good old-fashioned blackmail - and there’s a woman involved - he does become a team player for one of them. Sworn enemies, they each make it clear to Joe they they’d like - that they WANT - him to be on their team, but he makes it equally clear that “I don’t want to be part of that life.”

Joe’s exploits are noticed by a couple of men who are high up on the local criminal scene: Albert White (Robert Glenister), who runs the Irish mob, and Maso Pescatore (Remo Girone), who runs the Italian mob.

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