The Town

Rating: 7/10 (23 June 2016)

Three years after his debut with Gone Baby Gone, and two years before his Oscar winning success for the film Argo, Ben Affleck directed this film that looked and sounded a worthwhile watch. Basically set in the Charlestown neighbourhood of Boston, the town is renowned for producing a high number of crooks, generation after generation, these armed robbers never leave their own neighbourhood and depend on a code of silence; those caught serve their time. Four lifelong friends Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck), James Coughlin (Oscar and Golden Globe nominated Jeremy Renner), Albert 'Gloansy' Magloan (Slaine) and Desmond 'Dez' Elden (Owen Burke) treat each other like family, especially to Doug as his mother ran off and his father is in prison, and to James whose sister Krista (Gossip Girl's Blake Lively) takes drugs, is a single mother and has a casual sexual relationship with Doug. The foursome carry out a bank robbery, taking the manager Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) hostage for a short period, before releasing her physically unharmed, to make sure she did not see anything that could incriminate them if they encounter her again, Claire is followed, she lives in Charlestown. As such, Doug happens to meet Claire in town, he slowly begins a personal relationship with her to find out what she knows and what information has given to the police and the FBI, who have taken over the investigation. Doug learns that Claire has kept some information from the investigation for her own protection, this knowledge could identify James in particular, but as time has passed Doug has fallen for Claire, as she has for him. Ultimately Doug dreams of leaving his bleak life in Charlestown to be with Claire anywhere else, but he has to try and keep his true identity from her, and his colleagues are unaware that he has been seeing her. Leaving Charlestown however is not easy, as he and his gang are tasked by local gangster Fergus 'Fergie' Colm (posthumous BAFTA nominated Pete Postlethwaite) with carrying out a big job, Doug has to go ahead with it whether he likes it or not. FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley (Mad Men's Jon Hamm), the leading investigator, comes up with evidence that links the four men to the earlier bank robbery and a subsequent armoured car heist, and Claire finds out the truth about Doug as well, so there will be a big conclusion that will send them away dead or alive. Also starring Titus Welliver as Dino Ciampa, Chris Cooper as Stephen 'Mac' MacRay, Dennis McLaughlin as Rusty and Victor Garber as Assistant Bank Manager. Affleck is admirably subtle as the central conflicted character, and directs with good pace, and Renner is fantastically intense as the criminal with a short fuse, it is a simple concept, a bank robber carries out a job and falls in love with a victim taken during and is stuck between wanting love and to get away with being loyal to his colleagues, the romantic stuff is alright, but the heist and gun filled sequences definitely pick things up, all in all an entertaining crime drama. Very good!