a potent mixture of crime procedural and human drama

Rating: 8/10 (28 November 2011)

Based on the novel by Chuck Hogan, "The Town" is a superb drama set in Charlestown, Massachusetts, a neighborhood in Boston that has the dubious distinction of being the bank and armored-car robbery capital of the world. Writer/director Ben Affleck plays Doug MacCray, the leader of a sometimes unruly Irish gang that routinely engages in both those activities (the other members of the team include Jeremy Renner, Slaine, and Owen Burke). On one of their robberies, one of the members goes rogue by kidnapping an attractive bank manager and taking her along with them as a hostage. Although she is blindfolded the entire time and is eventually set free, several of the robbers fear she may still someday be able to testify against them were they ever to come to trial. To protect her against the more dangerous members of the group, Doug insinuates himself into her life and quickly finds himself developing a serious attraction to her.
"The Town" works beautifully on so many different levels at once: as a thrilling crime-and-detection tale, a complex human drama, and a richly textured account of life in an individual neighborhood. Doug may be torn between his criminal background and the love of a good woman who offers him a chance at a better life - but that doesn't stop him from still partaking in many of the foul deeds that have come to define his life over the years. If anything, "The Town" shows just how deeply planted are the roots that bind us to the soil (i.e., neighborhood) of our past - and how hard it is to rip ourselves free from them and still continue to flourish. In other words, it may be possible for a man to redeem himself in the eyes of God and his fellow citizens, but it may be a long and faltering journey on the way to that outcome.
As a character, Claire (Rebecca Hall) is equally three-dimensional and complex. She's a decent, hardworking young woman who tends her own garden in the city and volunteers her time in helping the youth in her community. When she meets Doug, she is still traumatized by the events that have happened to her and is initially unaware that Doug had any part in them, believing him to be just an easygoing, compassionate man with whom she's falling in love. How she'll react when she finds out the truth about Doug and how that revelation will affect their burgeoning relationship provides the key emotional focal point of the drama.
Running contrapuntally to the romance is the attempt on the part of the FBI, led by John Hamm (minus his Don Draper Brylcreemed hair), and the Boston Police Department to capture the band of thieves. There are moments of breath-bating suspense as the law inexorably closes in on its target, and Affleck proves once again that that much abused standby known as the "car chase" can still be a potent storytelling device when we actually care about what happens to the characters – even those it is not always all that easy to like.