Sadly, a wasted opportunity

Rating: 2/10 (14 August 2011)

I rented this because the idea sounded like a rare good one. Unfortunately, what few good ideas Hollywood has any more, they somehow manage to screw up. The Town is 125 minutes of my life I'd like back.
The movie starts with a bank heist, that kind of seems semi-professional but they take a hostage as a precaution. After they let the hostage go, one of the robbers follows her to make sure she's no threat. They meet, and they accidentally end up falling in love. Romance dramas aren't my preferred genre, but that's a pretty good story line to start with. It's definitely problem for the protagonist to try to get out of without hurting her. Etc.
What they did with it, though, was boring, slow and full of pointless twists and turns in the plot. Was the writer trying desperately to confuse the viewer so as not to guess the ending? I almost shut this one off a couple times, and the only reason I didn't was, to find out if I guessed the ending right. And the actual ending was far stupider than I had guessed, which means this writer has a lot to learn about suspense and climax. It's too bad, because the premise was really box-office hit material. No wonder I never heard of this when it was out!