One of the best crime movies ever!!!

Rating: 10/10 (3 November 2013)

Ben Affleck who starred as "Doug MacRay" did a phenomenal job in this crime thriller drama, which is perhaps one of my favorite films of all time. In my opinion this is for sure one of the best movies of its kind even better than another favorite of mine, Oceans Twelve, which just didn't display the drama and suspense that was provided by The Town. You sure couldn't tell that Affleck went seven years without having a lead role in a film; not to mention he was the screen writer and director, very impressive. This was only the second film Affleck directed and perhaps topped his first film, Gone Baby Gone. I also must praise Jeremy Renner as "Jem Coughlin," he was a great supporting actor in this film with his hostile personality. Renner was actually nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in this film. Doug and his life-long friends were big time bank robbers in Charlestown, Boston. A unit assembled by the crime lord "Fergie Colm" who was played by Pete Postlethwaite, playing a very intimidating role. After robbing the bank at the beginning of the movie they took a hostage "Claire Keesey" who was played by Rebecca Hall. She was considered a loose end by the gang which was strongly influenced by Jem Coughlin. This forced Doug to go and check in on her to see if she needed to be "taken care of," to protect them from getting caught but Doug ends up developing a romantic relationship with Claire. This romance between the two with the current situation added a very interesting twist to this suspenseful film because for the longest time Claire was completely unaware that Doug was one of the bank robbers. Until special F.B.I. agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) that was hot on the gangs trail after setting up surveillance and compiling evidence, shows Claire the truth.
I think all the actors did a pretty good job however, Affleck and Renner had the most impressive performance displaying great acting easily displaying that they were professional bank robbers. A perfect example of this is how detailed their plans were, just like during the last heist when they robbed the Cathedral of Boston, they knew exactly who was in the cash vault, their family, and where they lived intimidating them to open the door without alarming authorities. Detail such as this is what made me realize how much time was put into the film during the screen writing process. They literally had to think like brilliant criminals to come up with the amount of detail and ideas that the screenwriter put into these robberies.