Good, but not deserving all the plaudits

Rating: 6/10 (14 October 2010)

Ben Affleck's The Town has been garnering critical acclaim from all quarters, and in many respects it's well deserved. However, I cannot help but feel that the comparisons to films such as The Departed / Infernal Affairs and Heat are overdone, and suspect that this film will not be creating as much work for the judging panels come awards season as many critics seem to think.
Undoubtedly this is an efficient action thriller, although a little too long at exactly two hours. Rebecca Hall is very good as Claire Keesey, the bank manager who is kidnapped by a gang led by Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) before then becoming romantically involved with him. Her acting and the script allow her character to develop rather more complexity than the stock romantic interest so often found in similar pictures. Affleck's direction and Robert Elswit's photography are, among other things, an ode to Boston, with excellent use of location and frequent wide and aerial cityscape shots creating a sense of place.
Of particular note is Blake Lively's excellent performance as Krista Coughlin, sometime love interest of MacRay's, prostitute, addict and dealer. Lively's performance brings depth and humanity to an important character, and she deserves the Best Supporting Actress nominations that should come her way.
However, what is good about The Town is matched by what is flawed. While Affleck's direction is praiseworthy, I found his acting somewhat two-dimensional, all troubled frowns and pity. His relationship with Hall's character was simply not believable, due to a lack of chemistry between the pair as well as the circumstances of their relationship, which stretched credulity to breaking point. And the less said about the frankly embarrassing working-out scene, the better.
The unrealistic nature of the plot affected more than just the unlikely relationship between the leads, or the fact that Keesey seems to forgive MacRay even when she finds out he was responsible for her appalling ordeal. The characters of Slaine (Albert Magloan) and Jim Coughlin (an excellent performance from Jeremy Renner) take decisions that they know will lead to their deaths without the film having given us an adequate sense of desperation that would justify it. And after so much death and destruction, MacRay just drives away without anyone as much as raising an eyebrow.
Finally, the piece is morally dubious. Now this might be deliberate, but it did not sit well with me. We are apparently supposed to be rooting for MacRay. He is presented as a complex character; a tough life and background explains how he finds himself embroiled in violent crime. He's looking for a way out, but is stymied by the malevolent influence of others, particularly Jim Coughlin and the Boss, Fergus Colm (Pete Postlethwaite). Yet I never once had the impression that MacRay fights particularly hard to overcome these obstacles to his desire to get away, and regardless of his wishes, one cannot escape the fact that he is the leader of a violent gang of thieves who, by the end of the film, are responsible for death, bloodshed, trauma, kidnap and destruction of property on a grand scale.
While The Town is enjoyable enough as a heist movie, and features some great performances, it carries too many flaws to be considered a truly good film.