A Well Polished Turd

Rating: 4/10 (8 January 2011)

Many people seem to love Ben Affleck's The Town. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by that. I mean we do live in a society in which almost all our popular culture is fake. Fake "reality" shows flood our current television channels, the music business is full of fake posturing and overly manufactured acts, and Hollywood keeps filming the same old stories with bad writing, big star names, and lots of glitzy glamour. All flash and very little substance seems to be the trend of the day, or should I say decade? Well The Town is not much different, it too is a well polished turd. A turd that lacks pretty much any originality at all. The dialogue and overall quality of writing in this film should easily be surpassed by the average tenth grade student if challenged. Seriously, is there a single stretch of 10 minutes in this film that actually seemed like it could, or might be able to happen in reality? I've been around. From the big house to the white picket fence to the bad side of town and I'm telling you that no, there is nothing real. Nor is there anything meaningful here. This basically seemed like a badly written cartoon made into an even worse film. None of the characters who are given time to develop are anything more than cartoon like. Has the majority of people these days lost all perspective on what is realistic, and what is a total sham? It certainly seems so.