The Town (Review)

Often movies can be saved by the fact that it is not the story, but the storyteller. Such is the case of Ben Affleck’s The Town, a film which has a plot that is seen in just about everything about bank robbers. Instead, the acting, writing and direction take an average premise and make it into a memorable, exciting and powerful film that not only stands alone, but (along with Gone Baby Gone) proves that Affleck is a potentially great director who has some kind of career ahead of him.

Affleck not only directs, but also stars as Doug MacRay, a bank robber who lives in the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. His team consists of Jem Coughlin (Jeremy Renner), Gloansy (Slaine), and Dez Elden (Owen Burke). The film opens with the robbery of a bank in Cambridge, which results in the taking of a hostage named Claire, played by Rebecca Hall. After they release her they learn she lives in Charlestown, and they fear discovery. Doug volunteers to find out what she told police, if anything, but as luck would have it he and Claire fall in love, which complicates things a significant amount.

The entire time Doug is chased by Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm of Mad Men), who is growing tired by the evasiveness of MacRay’s crew. Hamm’s performance is my favorite in the film, because he is able to create a character without being tied up with a thick Boston accent. Don’t get me wrong, the performances here are quite good across the board, but Hamm comes off as more authentic. In a movie where the actors seem to be competing in an r-dropping contest, he stands out.

That said, just because everyone else commits to the accents doesn’t mean they don’t work, and around every turn the film is impeccable at distracting you from the clichés around you. Perhaps it takes Ben Affleck to write a Ben Affleck role, because this is his rawest, most emotional lead performance in many a moon. Jeremy Renner delivers his second great performance in a row following is Oscar-nominated work in last year’s Best Picture The Hurt Locker, playing a man that is about to burst in every shot. He’s been to jail already, and the way he sees it the worst he can lose is his life, something that no longer seems as precious to him.

Above all, The Town is an absolute triumph for Ben Affleck the director, who just two films in shows a promise that I certainly didn’t expect. Not long ago Affleck was middling around in Gigli, and out of nowhere he’s made two very good movies in a row. While The Town doesn’t hold the same thematic heft of Gone Baby Gone, it is more impressive from a technical standpoint. The Town gives us some of the most thrilling and unique action/chase scenes in recent memory, which is nothing to sneeze at. If you combine the brooding intensity of Gone Baby Gone and the absolute thrill of most of The Town, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say I’m convinced Affleck has a masterpiece in his future. Perhaps sooner rather than later.

I am as guilty as anyone of being so focused on wanting a film to tell me a story I’ve never heard before, or to stay utterly unpredictable. The Town does not do that, but instead it is able to give a depth to the usual clichés, and as such stands on its own. In a way it serves as an antidote to this summer’s Takers a bad heist movie that glamorized its characters and put them in a world of slow motion and sunglasses. The Town keeps its setting grounded in gritty reality that holds an incomparable power. I would be gob-smacked if I heard that a second of research went into Takers. For The Town Affleck interviewed actual bank robbers, studied the process and incorporated this into the film, thus creating an impeccable air of verisimilitude. I see The Town as the heist movie equivalent of Slumdog Millionaire: You may know where it’s going the whole time, but it’s an incredibly enjoyable and exciting experience the whole way, that the destination ends up being less important than the journey. It’s certainly not the best film of the year, in fact it’s far from perfect, but it’s one that I will look back on fondly for the foreseeable future.

Rating: (out of 4)