The Town
Warner Bros. Pictures
3 1/2 stars out of 5
By Zakk White
The Town –directed by and starring Ben ‘Chasing Amy’ Affleck—is the latest action/crime/gangster film set in Boston, Massachusetts. The Town focuses on a tight-knit gang of bank-robbers in Charlestown, a suburb of Boston who are trying to avoid the cops while planning—you guessed it—one last big score. The Town is highly unoriginal—it is Good Will Hunting with guns—and slick, but it does have enough talent and skill in front of and behind the camera that is used wisely—most of the time—to make it easy to recommend.
Affleck plays Doug MacRay, a Boston bank robber who lives a tough life of crime but—wait for it—has a heart of gold. He and his fly crew of crooks rob a local Cambridge bank in the first scene and they take a Claire—played by Rebecca ‘Vicky Christina Barcelona‘ Hall—hostage and then let her go after the coast is clear.
On the robber’s trail is FBI agent Frawley played by John ‘Don Draper’ Hamm who is a little too obsessed with catching MacRay and his crew. Since Claire may be able to identify the robbers to the FBI, MacRay begins to follow her around and they eventually meet and strike up a relationship. Will MacRay and his crew make the last big score? Will Claire find out that her boyfriend was the one who terrorized her and scarred her for life? Will agent Frawley ever catch up to the apparently genius bank robbers?
Affleck returns to the screen as an above average lead—he might be lucky that he is playing the strong, quiet type. It is refreshing to see him in a role that lives up to the promise he showed early in his career in Chasing Amy, Good Will Hunting and even as O’Bannon in Dazed and Confused. Hamm is fine as the overly determined FBI agent. While his role is underdeveloped, his acting ability is more CSI than Scorsese.
Jeremy ‘Hurt Locker‘ Renner is intense and believable as Doug’s sociopathic best friend Jem Coughlin who provides the unpredictable and surprising moments. Rebecca Hall and Blake Lively —the two leading ladies—are good but they aren’t given much to do since the story is ultimately driven by the choices made by the three male leads. I wish that Hall had served more of a purpose throughout the latter part of the film, because the early scenes with her are fantastic.
Affleck excels as a filmmaker. He knows how to choreograph a simple, tense action sequence like the opening bank robbery. Affleck is assisted by cinematographer Robert Elswit and editor Dylan Tichenor, both whom worked recently on There Will Be Blood and there are definite echoes in terms of visual style. Like Blood, the faces take up most of the screen, you are looking the characters squarely in the face most of the time, which adds to the drama. The action sequences here are superb—especially a robbery towards the middle of the movie.
The Town finds a good balance of action and quieter moments between Doug and Claire. The script is decent and is based on a novel by Chuck Hogan. The handling of the romance–which is usually tangential to a crime movie–is placed towards the center and is quite effective. It is refreshing when a love storyline in a crime film is as tense and interesting as the robberies themselves.
The Town does have its problems. While there is a lot of good tension and suspense, especially during the bank robbery scenes, the way the film plays out is rather predictable. The final shootout was ill conceived and a letdown after the excellence of the earlier scenes. I was also hoping for a messier ending, which I felt a movie about criminals and murderers deserved. Instead, we get a final shot straight out of a Nicholas Sparks movie adaptation.
One cannot help but think of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed as a recent Boston gangster film. While that film was far from perfect, it at least provided surprises and some unconventional plot points. The Town is unfortunately rather trite and clichéd with its final act where the tension should be exploited. Instead, I could have told you from about the one-hour point exactly where this movie was headed. Once the main questions about Doug’s character were answered, there isn’t much drama left to exploit.
While The Town is farm from a masterpiece, it offers more then enough thrills and good performances that it is definitely worth checking out. I would recommend seeing this in the theatre since the filmmakers know how to fill a screen and use sound effectively. At home, it would probably seem even more typical.