Movie Review: The Town (2010)

Proving for a third time that his Oscar win back in 1998 for Good Will Hunting alongside hetero lifemate Matt Damon was no fluke, his latest two writing endeavors find Ben Affleck with a new partner in crime, Aaron Stockard. With Affleck behind the lens first on Gone Baby Gone and now The Town, it’s fair to say that behind the camera is a much better fit for him than trying to emote in front of it.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Affleck’s acting skills, but his direction is just far more inspired than his acting chops. In fact, this may be one of the better performances we’ve seen from Affleck in years. Adapting Chuck Hogan’s novel, Prince of Thieves (with a title change probably intended not to confuse people with the Robin Hood movie), we find that all the skill he brought to the table with Gone Baby Gone was no fluke. While it may not be my bet for this year’s Best Picture, I certainly see a nomination in sight even if the ending is pretty much a standard issue happy Hollywood ending.

Affleck stars as Doug MacRay who has lived in Charlestown, Massachusetts his entire life. Growing up in the projects of Boston can be quite a burden but the people seem to wear their inheritance on their sleeves. We learn from the opening sequence that Charlestown produces more bank robbers than anywhere else in the U.S. Doug is one of these. Doug and his friends Albert "Gloansy" Magloan (Gone Baby Gone’s own Bubba), unofficial red-shirt Desmond Elden (Owen Burke), and the loose cannon of the group, James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner hot off of last year’s Best Picture, The Hurt Locker), have just robbed a bank and taken Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall, Vicky Christina Barcelona and The Prestige) hostage.

FBI S.A. Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm, Mad Men) working alongside partner Dino Campio (Lost’s Man in Black, Titus Welliver) are keeping tabs on these boys after they discover that one of them has some mighty interesting sick days at work, aside from the fact that Frawley knows they will “never get 24 hour surveillance unless one of them converts to Islam.” Meanwhile, Doug has confiscated Claire’s driver’s license during the robbery and starts stalking her to find out if she’s a threat to keep James from tying up their loose end with a bullet. Obviously Doug starts to fall for Claire after he learns enough that they’re all in the clear and he does everything in his power to keep her out of harm's way while Frawley keeps trying to get her to throw the whole gang under a bus. All the while, the boys are gearing up for one last job set up by local Irish florist gangster "Fergie" Colm (Pete Postlethwaite).

Article Author: Cinenerd

A Utah based writer, born and raised in Salt Lake City, UT for better and worse. Cinenerd has had an obsession with film his entire life, finally able to write about them since 2009, and the only thing he loves more are his wife and their two wiener dogs (Beatrix Kiddo and Pixar Animation). …

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