Oscar contender is Ben Affleck's second bite at a hometown magnum opus. Exhilarating and honest film about how children inherit the sins of their fathers

Rating: 10/10 (7 November 2010)

We all know Affleck the actor.
In his latest crowd-pleaser, and only the second feature he's directed, Affleck the actor limbers up like he's practicing Tai-Chi. He simply glides through his character Doug MacRay in The_Town(2010) like the hockey skater he is in real life, never breaking as his cameras shoot him unblinking through confession scenes.....daring himself repeatedly to spot past camera. Many good actors still can't do that (eg Javier Bardem, Eat_Pray_Love(2010)). According to IMDb, Affleck has "21 wins & 38 nominations" in addition to being an Oscar-winning co-writer of Good_Will_Hunting(1997), yet he's probably a much better director than that. It'd be critically blunt (and a little naive) to charge Affleck with lacking acting ability at this late stage.
The real surprise is that he has a VOICE. Audiences can appreciate Affleck's contemporary-yet-timeless directorial themes of children inheriting the sins of their....parents (mother and father respectively, so far).
For The_Town, he's attracted top-grade talent both in front and behind the camera---prime example being his Oscar-winning (There_Will_Be_Blood(2007)) cinematographer, now DoP Robert Elswit, whose fly-on-the-wall camera lingers in one scene on a fight, leaving the baby in the room to cry off-camera. Another throwaway beat was his filming the obstructed face of a coin-op laundry attendant, flagging that MacRay's inner focus is on something else. Audiences are charmed by the intimacies set up with such carefully casual imprecision amidst the bustle. Can anyone say "Oscar"?
MacRay/Affleck's divergent reactions to his two girlfriends in The_Town(2010)---his face captured by Elswit---reveal the wrung-out young lover struck by the wrong kind of sex---or life---he's having. Touches of Affleck's Holden McNeil from Chasing_Amy(1997) now show up in MacRay's confession to Claire (Rebecca Hall), as his romantic transition painfully crystallizes MacRay's inner shift from his "Townies".
The wonderful Second Unit (Directors Alexander Witt and Dylan Tichenor, uncredited) also threw in everything from 10" hand-helds to helicopter shots, and zippy car-chase masters to explicate all the skittering vehicles. This eye for editing is obviously thanks to the talented Tichenor doubling as both SUD and film editor....another Oscar right there.
The_Town's silence/feedback signals effectively squeal across the audience's distress over its violent robberies; Affleck and Aaron Glascock's sound design succeeds precisely because this technique is now so little-used.
But a film that adorns MacRay's jailhouse visit of his father with real orchestral violins deserves serious kudos (another Oscar nom).
Affleck's second bite at a hometown magnum opus boasts an amazing cast, a gift to fans of his universalist films. His leading ladies, especially the adaptable Ms.Hall, allow The_Town to sidestep the gender-challenged sins of most similar male-demog films.
Titus Welliver ("local crime-fighter" Dino Ciampa) is still the camera's darling even minus his mo' from GBG(2007), but I'm craving more scenes of Ciampa's career.
Pete Postlewaite looks haggard, which just hands Affleck a quip about 'Fergie''s features as an ex-boxer.
However, as action fans are bound to complain, this isn't wall-to-wall adrenalin; it's a drama-thriller only seemingly full of heists. There are only three, so it effortlessly avoids The_Hurt_Locker(2009)'s episodic traps. Affleck, Peter Craig & Aaron Stockard's authentic screenplay adaptation of Chuck Hogan's "Prince of Thieves"---about America's most bank-robbery-ridden square mile---brings Charlestown's "Irish omerta" underworld richly to life. The action and drama are exquisitely balanced, and the film, thankfully, takes its own observations about generational criminality seriously.
The narrative does editorialise towards the end, but with an exemplary pace and universal appeal, The_Town plays like a contemporary Shawshank.
The pacing is so good because the director keeps most of his mysteries only for so long; the storytelling isn't manipulative (overly reliant on revelations). Affleck gives us enough information so we're unworried by unanswered questions, and his hints advance the plot. For instance, we know MacRay left that note for the FBI, but FBI SA.Frawley (a too greasy Jon Hamm) then passes it off onto Claire's loser lawyer---producing the biggest laugh of the film.
In homage to Yves Simoneau's 44_Minutes(2003) (true story fictionalised as Heat(1995)), Affleck climaxes the film with a realistic/exhilarating street shootout, with innocent cars driving in the police's line-of-sight. I don't know HOW LONG I've craved such a realistic GSW, but Affleck delivers an amazing smashed jaw effect in the hail of bullets. His well-adjusted action even guarantees some ironic visual comedy, as first a little boy, then a lone cop in a black-and-white get alternatively mesmerised/gobsmacked by a carload of bank-robbers in creepy nun drag.
This type of organic (unforced) gentle humour turns out to be one of the best things about the film. Affleck's comedy is situational, logical and fresh, and always a surprise. It's wonderful to sit amongst an audience whose peals of well-tracking laughter release all their stress. Tongue-in-cheek, Affleck deftly has MacRay utter incognito concern for his robbery victim, then has Claire let him off the hook with "It wasn't your fault"---when it literally was.
The clever director has learned lessons from his prior success: this time Affleck's prologue contains minimal sombre narration. There are no opening credits, but Affleck's gravelly voice does its job admirably. His brogue is Bostonian; perhaps he plumbed actual memories for Jem Coughlin(Jeremy Renner)'s pistol-whipping his surrogate brother MacRay to stop him leaving his criminal niche. Astonishingly, AO.Scott (NY-Times) finds this "Townie" relationship not atavistic ENOUGH.
Affleck has even stronger observations about neighbourhoods. What MacRay does to the local crime boss still trying to rule him through his "lovely new girlfriend" and his father Stephen(Chris Cooper, looking in his single scene every bit the Walpole lifer he plays) is a lesson to all victims of pyramid schemes.
Naturally, critics are now comparing Affleck to Clint Eastwood, for Eastwood's somewhat similar directorial road, and Mystic_River(2003).
And yet I doubt audiences will buzz about Town(2010) as they had over Inception(2010). This is the more honest/satisfying film, but it's not terribly escapist, concluding that "No matter how much you've changed, you still have to pay the price for what you've done".(10/10)