One of the movies that save Ben Affleck career.

Rating: 8/10 (28 January 2013)

The best Ben Affleck's film since Daredevil. Just kidding about Daredevil, that movie sucks. The Town redeems Ben Affleck not only from awful films he star in the past, and pretty much help him with his new job: directing, that would help him in later films like Argo. I was kinda iffy about seeing this, because first Ben Affleck starts in it, second Ben Affleck directed it, haven't yet seeing 'Gone Baby Gone'. I was kinda hoping it would be very similar to 'the Departed'. I really enjoy it. The movie is loosely based on Chuck Hogan's novel Prince of Thieves, and the movie start with a bank robbery. Claire Keesey, a bank manager (Rebecca Hall) just got rob and taken hostage, but later releaser her without harm. She was soon pick up by the police, and taken to the station for questions. FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) interviews her to see if she can identify any of the mask bank robbers. Jon Hamm's performance alone as the FBI agent trying to nail them was great. Jon Hamm (Mad Men) will make a huge jump from TV to movies, soon. I predict he will win a Oscar one day. Anyways, she couldn't remember due to the trauma and sent home to rest. She later breaks down at a laundry mat, when a fellow Boston neighbor Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) sees and tries to help her deal with the pain. What Rebecca Hall doesn't know is that Doug is one of the four bank robbers, who has come to Claire to save her from fellow bank robber and friend James "Jem' Coughlin (Jeremy Renner) who thinks of eliminating her as a witness due to her knowing too much. Jeremy Reginner was great as his psychopath best friend, who would rather die in the street, then in prison. He was just that evil in this film. A romance grows between Doug and Claire forcing Doug to make a life choice, to get out of the bank robbing business due to his disenchanted with his criminal lifestyle and the lies he has to tell Claire. Ben Affleck as Doug McRay seems to be a role he needed to play. The character is a crook, but you really see trying to change. There is a charm to it. The only problem for Doug is that Fergus 'Fergie' Colm (Pete Postlethwaite), his crime boss doesn't want him to leave. The writing for the film was pretty damn good: the whole speech about what happen to Doug's mother, the speech about Claire being tied up and touching the water. The movie has brilliant dialogue, and no better example of that then the 'Weight of Dollar scene' with Blake Lively and Jon Hamm. The accents can be hard to understand at times, but most of the parts are well-acted. The only one I had problems was Rebecca Hall's performance, it's seem too acty, and the scene in the bathroom where she was crying. I couldn't tell if she was crying or laughing. The three heist in the movie was great for the action-packed fan. The Action scenes wasn't too violent, or too graphic. It was the Stadium scene that got me. It was cut OK, but there were bits of the heist scenes I couldn't figure out due the movie leaving out a lot of information about how they were able to pull these bank task off with the limited money they had. How in the earth did they get police uniforms? The sex scenes were well crafted, and wasn't graphic at all. The sex scene between Doug and Krista (Blake Lively) is questionable, wasn't really needed. I know it's showed him not being into it, it actually helped with understanding his feelings throughout the movie, but it's doesn't have to be there. There were even comedy in the movie. See the nuns and one cop scene. Another one, that got me was when James drank the soda during the last shoot out. Another thing about the film, I didn't like was the negative press about Charlestown, as if saying it's a bad neighborhood. Today the neighborhood is a mix of upper-middle and middle-class residences, housing projects, and a large working class Irish-American demographic. While crime is still predominant, it's not the bank robbery capital of the world as said in the film. If the movie is settling in the early 1990's, it might be more reasonable. Anyways, overall: a great movie, that has very similarities to that of Heat, but in my opinion better than that.