Affleck's movie directing growth

Rating: 9/10 (24 October 2010)

Ben Affleck's second film is one of the best movies of the year. I'll try to tell you why. First off, it's better than its predecessor "Gone Baby Gone". I find impressive that Affleck decided step it up in almost every aspect: "The Town" runs longer, cuts deeper, increases in action scenes and in character development. We remember more characters and the romantic relationship at the center of the film is given more time and because the script is morally consistent, "The Town" is one of the few crime movies in which we care more about the criminal's life than the success of the robbery of a bank or a truck. Dramatically, it's irresistible.
Talking about increasing risks. After years of trying to build a better reputation as an actor by participating in films that wouldn't stain his image, and after directing a film that gained him respect even when his acting skills weren't as recognized still, Ben Affleck decides to be himself the star of the show. He plays Doug MacRay, an expert robber that works with a very skilled gang in Charlestown: instructed by The Florist (Pete Postlethwaite), they tackle the best jobs in town and, because something always goes wrong, in the middle of a bank robbery, they take the manager, Claire, (Rebecca Hall) as a hostage. They drop her in some beach and start watching her to make sure she doesn't say anything to the police. Because she knows, we know. Doug starts seeing her and later on Claire recalls the robbers told her to walk until she felt the water: "It was the longest walk of my life; I thought I'd fall from a cliff".
Doug starts dating Claire because his impulses tell him so. He can't fight it. Women in both of Affleck's films tend to present this quality that goes beyond beauty: either they are independent and kind, women you want to fly to heaven with; or self-destructive and troubling, women you inevitably want to save. The common factor is that they are both very vulnerable. Both women co-exist in Doug's life, and we can see that he's trapped; he wants to do something. But at the same time, "The Town" is about the things we can't help. I mean, of course, the things we shouldn't really do when we think about them.
Name a character and I'll point out a weakness. The script of the fillm, based again on a novel and written by Affleck and Aaron Stockard alongside Peter Craig, provides characters with huge moral dilemmas. In "Gone Baby Gone", this aspect made its crowning way towards a climatic ending, and it worked. Here it's all over the place, because every decision is apparently life-changing, because every conversation holds a secret. Because the past, never absolutely revealed yet always present, is devastating.
Writing always from the heart but this time without the intention of generating impact, Affleck might have achieved his best screenplay. The genre conventions we find in the story are the ones that make the movie 'activate' (to just say something), but a whole different thing makes the movie breathe. The way Affleck has of capturing, again, a specific place and making it his own. He masters a special mood (thank you for that score again Harry Gregson- Williams), he dominates the codes, he drives the streets and he walks the roofs in order to leave no doubt that he knows, again, what he's talking about.
The characters, and their involvement in a story that we need to see told show the growth and the natural flowing of a director who's as generous as every great actor/writer/director that, from time to time, decides to be the hero. That generosity is expressed in a way that we can realize he's the main star but everyone who stands by him is perfectly chosen to shine and still not surpass him. That's why Jeremy Renner turns in a stupendous performance as Doug's best friend, a fine step to follow his Oscar nomination; that's why Affleck gives Blake Lively of "Gossip Girl" the –up to now- part of her life; that's why John Hamm feels at times underused and a bit caricaturized as a federal agent; and that's also why major names like Postlethwaite and Chris Cooper have only a couple of scenes.
I believe these are the right calls, by a director so confident that in the end truly becomes the brightest (in intelligence and in light) star. I honestly think Affleck's performance is the winning one: I believe in everything Doug says and does and I root for him all the way. I found myself touched by "The Town", a film not intentionally made for that effect, but with all the elements in place to end up causing it. If you don't agree with all this none sense, it's only fair to say the film is a part action, part crime, romantic and dramatic feature with family/friendship subplotsStraightly told, visually appealing, Hollywood-ish if you prefer. That should also be enough if you want to make one of the year's best films.