Affleck Helms A Tour-de-Torce Bank robbery Thriller

Rating: 10/10 (19 September 2010)

Ben Affleck sheds his perennial pretty boy image for the Boston-based crime thriller "The Town" that he stars in and co-scripted with "Gone Baby Gone" scenarist Aaron Stockard and freshman scribe Peter Craig. Instead, Affleck casts himself as an unshaven, blue-collar, day-laborer with close-cropped hair who works at a rock-breaking company. When he isn't smashing rocks into gravel, he leads a crew of criminals that gives the FBI a run for their money. This realistic, bullet-riddled, bank robbery/armored car heist actioneer qualifies as the best since director Michael Mann's "Heat" (1995) with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. "The Town" bristles with compelling characters, suspenseful situations, superbly staged robberies, but no special effects. This sizzling, white-knuckled, cops and robbers saga takes cinematic bank robbery capers to the next level. Indeed, "The Town" makes "Takers" look like the work of rank amateurs. The procedures that "The Town" criminals follow to pull off a heist constitutes the kind of material those old Hollywood movies could never have condoned for fear of serving as a tutorial for crooks. At the same time, "The Town" doesn't glorify the notorious characters that Affleck and co-star Jeremy Renner play. They pay for the consequences of their larcenous life style. Actress Rebecca Hall plays an innocent bystander who becomes Affleck's unlikely love interest, while Jon Hamm delivers a first-rate performance as a tenacious FBI special agent intent on taking down Affleck. The worst thing that you can say about "The Town" is that adheres to the police procedural formulaic, but Affleck directs with such verve that you won't be thinking about the formula.
"The Town" opens with the factoid that the one-square mile area of Charleston, Massachusetts, has bred more bank robbers and armored-car thieves than any place in America. The first scene depicts the considerable attention to detail that these criminals take to keep themselves from being nabbed. Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck of "Reindeer Games") and his gang splash bleach on the crime scene to remove traces of their DNA. They don ghoulish Halloween masks and outfits, wield fully automatic submachine guns, and destroy anything that might help the authorities to identify them. First, they confiscate all the cell phones from employees and customers and then immerse them in an aquarium of water. Second, another gang member sabotages the surveillance cameras and zaps the memory storage devices for these cameras in a micro-wave oven. When somebody activates a silent alarm, the robbers take a bank employee, Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall), as a hostage, blindfold her, and bind her hands behind her back. Later, after driving her around to disorient her, they turn Claire loose. Naturally, they torch the stolen vehicle used for their getaway. During the heist, however, Claire catches a glimpse of a tattoo on the nape of the neck of Doug's psychotic, trigger-happy partner, James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner of "The Hurt Locker"), but she doesn't divulge this important detail to FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm of "The Day the Earth Stood Still") when he questions her. Basically, Coughlin warned her he would kill her if she informs the Feds about anything. Afterward, Coughlin wants to kill her, but Doug intervenes. He assures Coughlin that he will handle Claire.
Doug follows Claire to a laundry mat one day, and they strike up a conversation. Before long they are seeing each other casually. Doug doesn't tell Coughlin he is dating Claire. The relationship between Doug and Claire blossoms. Claire tells Doug that she works as a volunteer at the Boys and Girls center and saw a photo of Doug as a youngster. Doug remains guarded about his background He doesn't want to alarm Claire who eventually takes him home for an evening. Previously, Doug drank, gambled, and barbecued with his closest friend James and his sister Krista Coughlin (Blake Lively of "Accepted"), and they regard him as family. Krista and he have been casual lovers. Although she has had a baby, Doug denies that the child belong to him. Krista thrives on Oxycontin and cocaine. Earlier, James killed another man who had planned to kill Doug. James spent 9 years in prison for the killing. He uses this incident as a means to cement the bonds between Doug and himself. Doug, James, Desmond Elden (newcomer Owen Burke) and Albert 'Gloansy' Magloan (George Carroll of "The Crack Down") work for a genuinely sleazy individual, Fergus 'Fergie' Colm (Pete Postlethwaite of "The Usual Suspects"), nicknamed 'the Florist,' who has an inside track on all the jobs they pull. The Feds have never been able to nail either Fergie or Doug, but they have piled up mountains of information about them. For instance, they know Doug's dad, Stephen MacRay (Chris Cooper of "The Kingdom"), is a convicted criminal in prison, and they keep tabs of every visit Doug makes to see his father.
Eventually, Frawley discovers Claire's affair with Doug. If this doesn't complicate matters enough, Coughlin demands that the crew pull another robbery. This time they are taking down an armored car, but Doug has already developed a case of cold feet because of the impact that Claire has exerted on him. Doug wants to quit, leave Boston, and start anew with Claire. Doug has always been plagued because his mom left him when he was age six. Stephen has struggled to make Doug forget about his mom. Matters come really come to a head when Doug and Coughlin almost botch an armored car heist. Meanwhile, the sagacious Feds play their ace card to obtain information about Doug and James. They go after Krista. They threaten not only to bust Krista for illicit drug use, but also they send her young daughter into state care. Finally, Fergie has a really big job planned that will land them $3.5 million. Doug refuses to pull the heist until Fergie threatens to kill Claire and chemically neuter him. "The Town" erupts with a bang and ends with a bang with surprises galore in between.