Review: The Town

Warner Bros.                                                                                 

How does one go about making a truly good, unique and realistic crime thriller? This genre has to be one of the hardest to avoid cliches and dull plot lines and characters we've seen before. It's not one of those genres that has a whole lot of examples for what a great movie looks like. The one film that comes mind right away as a brilliant, intense, and exciting crime thriller is "Heat", in my opinion, Michael Mann's best movie, starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer. It also exhibits one of the best shootouts I've ever seen. So where does Ben Affleck's second directorial work since "Gone Baby Gone" fall?

Well, as said before, it's hard to find a really unique film in this genre these days, and "The Town" is not what I'd call "unique". But it sure is a surprise. It's great all around cast and intense, expertly paced plot makes it a film you do not want to miss this fall. Affleck stars as Doug MacRay, born and bread in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and an expert when it comes to planning and executing bank robberies along with his childhood friend Jim Coughlin (a very intense, violent Jeremy Renner). It's a great opening to the story as the movie starts with a bank robbery and Coughlin ends up taking the manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall) kidnap just for a backup plan. Ultimately, Doug takes it upon himself to follow Claire later and make sure she doesn't know too much. But then he asks her out.....and you guess how that might complicate things. Meanwhile F.B.I Secret Agent Frawley ("Madmen"'s Jon Hamm) is close on their tale.

As I said before, it's an all around intense movie that shies away from settling down with too much talking without moving forward. It's definitely a trait that was evident in "Gone Baby Gone" as well. And while there aren't too many major twists and turns, the building tension and complications to Doug's predicament keep you guessing as to what will happen in the end. If you're familiar at all with scenarios like this one, you know there's only two options: he gets away or gets killed. It's never clear which it's going to be either. 

Warner Bros.

In fact, there are a few instances where Doug could definitely get caught. That's one of the best things I noticed about this movie. Whereas in most movies where the criminals are too cool and smart to get caught, the FBI in "The Town" are really on top of things. It's definitely a more realistic approach, I think. How hard could it be for a task force like the FBI to track down a few bank robbers in an area probably around a few square miles? Just goes to show what a dangerous game these guys are playing.

And for once I think this is a movie where most people won't be annoyed with Affleck. I think he did a good job. But that's also thanks to the great supporting cast. Renner is good at playing tough guys on the edge of insanity (see: "The Hurt Locker"), and Hall is very good as the distressed woman caught in the middle of a crazy scenario (see: "The Prestige"). And of course, everyone loves Don Draper aka Jon Hamm! I have yet to see any of "Madmen" but I'm told it's a great show. I just don't get around to watching much TV, I'm always watching movies.....Anyway, Hamm is a formidable foe for Doug indeed and always very close to catching him.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you won't be wasting your money on this one. It's a smart script with a smart team to play it out with some smashing editing and cinematography I quite enjoyed. It seems now that Affleck has finally found his skillset after "Daredevil" didn't work out and we will now be seeing him as primarily a director from now on.