THE TOWN

Dir. Ben Affleck US 2010

"If we get jammed up, we're holding court in the streets."

I (and pretty much everyone else who saw it) was extremely impressed with Ben Affleck's 2007 directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone. My expectations for his sophomore effort were reasonably high and he's pulled it off again, while hinting at a developing style that would not be out of place in the 70's heyday of urban crime thrillers. Also, despite people still giving him shit for it, the guy can act as well.

The Town is set in and around the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown, a haven for professional bank robbers who treat the occupation as family business (although the trailer claims that there are 300 bank robberies in Boston every year, which is total bullshit). Doug MacRay (Affleck) is a failed hockey player who, along with his adopted brother Jem (Jeremy Renner) and two other friends, Dez and Gloansy, makes his living robbing banks at the behest of a local Irish crime boss called Fergie the Florist (Pete Postlethwaite). After taking a bank manager (Rebecca Hall) hostage during a job and then releasing her, Doug follows her to make sure she isn't talking to the police and ends up in a relationship with her. Forced to keep secrets from both his new girlfriend and his partners, Doug's life is further complicated by the arrival of Adam Frawley, the highly driven leader of an FBI task force assigned to bring them down.

Watching this film, I was reminded of a movie I watched last year, The Friends Of Eddie Coyle, a 1973 film by Peter Yates which also revolves around a team of bank robbers in Boston. Aside from a direct homage to that film early on, The Town feels very much like the films of that era, with its lean plot, grubby setting and the straight-forward, do-it-yourself attitudes of the characters and the filmmaking. The film makes effective use of its locations; the narrow streets of the North End and the drab brick buildings in Charlestown allowing the city of Boston feel like a character all its own, which is appropriate given the title. Affleck acquits himself well as a director, keeping the film humming along at a quick pace despite it two hour running time and pulling off a variety of sequences with equal aplomb, from explosive shoot-outs and car chases to easy-going romance to slow-burn suspense (his skill at the latter is particularly surprising; I was on the edge of my seat during a scene at an outdoor cafe about halfway through the film).

As was the case with Gone Baby Gone, Affleck has assembled a great group of actors to fill out the cast of characters. Standouts include Jeremy Renner as Jem, Mad Men's Jon Hamm as Frawley and Chris Cooper pulling a one scene wonder as Doug's father, who is serving life without parole thanks to the family business. Jem is fairly stock as a character (he can be summed up pretty well in an exchange where Doug asks him to help him beat the shit out of some guys but doesn't allow him to ask why, to which he assents immediately, revealed himself in a single line to be both a loyal friend and violent nutcase), but Renner redirects the livewire intensity he displayed in The Hurt Locker into a much more conventional, but equally fearsome performance. The depiction of Frawley ends up being a bit more interesting on paper. It's inevitable that the law enforcement figures in these films end up as the antagonists since, despite their moral superiority, they are nonetheless working against the criminal protagonists. Frawley is written more as a true villain, his all-consuming zeal for apprehending Doug's crew used as justification for blackmailing and terrorizing witnesses and informants and generally just being an asshole. It's an interesting choice for the part, foregoing the balance that ususally displayed in films that show perspectives on both sides of the law. Hamm's performance is also solid enough to overcome some of Frawley's clumsier dialogue, a lot of which sounded like it was included specifically so it could be used in the trailer.

Rebecca Hall is perfectly adequate in the role of Claire, the unfortunate bank manager who gets caught in the crossfire. Her chemistry with Affleck is appropriately sweet, but their courtship is bizarrely drawn out, especially given how obvious it is that they're going to end up romantically involved. Call me cynical, but I found it distractingly unrealistic that it would take four or five dates for a relationship between two people that attractive to become more than platonic. The only questionable choice in the cast is Blake Lively as Krista, Jem's sister who carries a slutty, cocaine-addled torch for Doug throughout the film. Given how prominately she was featured in the promotional material for the film, her character barely appears in the film, and when she does, she feels more like a plot device than a character. Regardless, Lively does well with what little she's given. I've never seen Gossip Girl (and probably never will), but this seems like an attempt to break away from the upper-crust atmosphere of that show and play something a bit trashier (cue zings about Gossip Girl already being trashy).

Despite the overwhelmingly positive critical reception this film has received, it strikes me as a bit too meat-and-potatoes to garner any major accolades come awards season. However, I'm happy that Affleck is now two for two on directing and I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a well-made crime flick.

UP NEXT: A movie that will definitely be getting lots of awards this year, The Social Network. Yes, the Facebook movie was as good as everyone's saying it is. Feel free to be shocked.