The Town (2010) - Ben Affleck's Double-Threat Movie!

Rating: 8/10 (6 January 2012)

Ben Affleck directs, co-writes, and stars in "The Town", a movie about crime, robbery, and betrayal. Affleck has organized a brilliant cast, a dark script, a clever directing duty, and tons of thrilling moments. Now, although this movie has a few side effects, this is still one of 2010's best films. Ben Affleck stars as a professional bank robber who falls in love with the manager of a bank that he recently had robbed with his team. He tries to juggle his personal life and robbery game, and tries to make sure the F.B.I. doesn't catch him in the act. Ben Affleck really knows how to direct a movie! There are so many brilliant performances in this movie. Besides Affleck's awesome performance, the rest of the cast includes Jeremy Renner in an Oscar-nominated performance as Affleck's robbery partner, Rebecca Hall as the bank manager recently robbed by a gang, the late Pete Postlethwaite as the local crime boss who runs a flower shop, and Chris Cooper delivers a pleasant performance as Affleck's prisoned father. There are some moments to be had, thanks to a dark script that actually knows what it wants to be, and some very cool robbery scenes that make the movie stand out. But, the only problem with the movie is only kept in a minimum. The movie starts off too slow, and starts taking away my focus for half of the first act. But that's when things start to progress, and the movie gets better. This movie is also an hour and a half too long, and some moments were just silly. But I didn't care about that, because this is still a great film. Ben Affleck deserves all the credit given to him for this movie. That just proves actors can be awesome directors. They can make sure a movie has a great premise, a terrific cast, and some thrilling moments. That's exactly what Affleck has accomplished for "The Town". This is an exciting and dramatic bank heist movie. "The Town", in my review, "an exhilarating robbery movie, but sometimes dragging".