Solid effort, but still flawed

Rating: 7/10 (9 December 2010)

I am actually pretty conflicted about Ben Affleck's new feature 'The Town'. I liked his previous effort Gone Baby Gone. Like The Town, that movie was filled with dangerous looking characters, good actors, an interesting script and the steady hand of a director in control. The surprise of Gone Baby Gone is well, without trying to be funny: Gone. We now know that Affleck has the capacity to make Eastwood- or Lumet-like movies. I'm disappointed that Affleck hasn't made the real step to become that topnotch director. A director who works out improbabilities in the script. But to say that The Town is a bad movie would do it no justice. It's actually pretty good. It tries to be in the same category as Heat, but has too many improbabilities to be in that category.
I am not all that surprised that Affleck made a 4 hour (!) first cut of this movie. Because I think this movie needs that kind of running time to make it's full impact. I had the same feeling with Copland. Because of different reasons Affleck had to trim his movie back to it's 2 hour and somewhat minutes for the studio to give it the go-ahead. The 2 hours left on the cutting-floor have to be character development. It's that simple. We hardly get to know all the interesting characters in this movie (including the 2 other members of the gang). We find out at the very last (well, me at least) that it's his best friends sister who clings to him with her baby. His character MacCrady does the moody-thing just a bit too much, without really explaining. Too bad the studio couldn't compromise. A 3 hour cut could have made this better. But I guess only Cameron and Mann are allowed to make 3 hour movies.
Also, some action taken by it's characters had me scratching the back of my head. The FBI seems to work with tactics from the 1970's. When the ambulance leaves the stadium, it is not riddled with bullets, when there was an intense exchange of fire not long before. But the driver dies in the following crash. Trainstations are not riddled with cops, so a convict can just take the train to freedom? The cops on the street don't have MacCrady's profile and face implanted on their brain, seeing he shot at cops and all? And the biggest one: the girl really falls for him? Really? Like Gone Baby Gone, the ending is too soft, too pleasing and too easy.
But let's not be too negative. Affleck gives his The Town an authentic (as far as I can tell, never been) feeling. The character speak and move like they have lived in Charlestown most of their lives. There isn't a line a dialog that sounds cheesy or out of place. Although I really don't know what the FBI-man meant with the size of bills thing.
The actors are their characters. That's because they are good actors working with good material, but Affleck knows how to get it out of them. The action-scene's are well photographed and not implausible just to make you go 'whhooaaa'. But with the always excellent Robert Elswitt behind the lens, that's a certainty.
If there's a way to get the studio to sign off on a 4 hour cut on Blu Ray, let me know Ben. Because I would love to see that one. With the version we have now, I still recommend it, but I still feel that bits and pieces are missing.