Ben's 2 for 2

Rating: 7/10 (18 January 2012)

Ben Affleck follows up his excellent directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, with another winner in The Town. It's perhaps not quite up to the standards of his first film but it is very good in its own right. Affleck goes back to the world he knows best, Boston. In this case specifically the neighborhood of Charlestown, perhaps the nation's most notable armed robbery hot spot. Robbing banks, holding up armored trucks, it's a way of life for the residents of Charlestown. Well not all of them of course. But enough of them to make the area's reputation well-earned. From this neighborhood comes the group of four thieves our story will follow, the crime lord who holds the crew under his thumb and the strung-out girl clinging to the dream of a romance that has long since passed her by. It turns out there's one other important character who calls Charlestown home. Claire is the manager of the bank our crew robs in the film's opening. She ends up being taken hostage but is released unharmed. When the thieves find out she's from the neighborhood what are they to do about her? The hothead of the group would have no qualms about putting a bullet in her head. The more reasoned leader of the group decides to track her, find out what she knows, see if she can implicate them. He ends up doing more than tracking her, he falls in love with her. This, needless to say, provides complications.
Affleck himself plays the lead role of Doug, the bank robber looking for a way out who may have found it in this new romance which blooms with Claire. But getting out is never easy. Not when hot-tempered Jem finds out Doug's fooling around with the girl who could put them all away for life. And not when crime lord Fergie always has another job for the crew. And not when Doug's old flame Krista, who happens to be Jem's sister, refuses to let go. It's a very tangled web, one which seems to have Doug well and truly trapped. Charlestown keeps a strong hold on those who call it home.
Affleck does a reasonably fine job with his portrayal of this somewhat tortured character. There is the nagging sense that his time in front of the camera here may have detracted a bit from his work as the director. This movie is not nearly as focused as Gone Baby Gone, a little sloppy at times. Character development is rushed or in some cases nonexistent. Jem, played with a wonderful spark and clear menace by Jeremy Renner, is the only character other than Doug who we really feel we get to know much at all. Crime lord Fergie, played by a scarily gaunt Pete Postlethwaite, obviously holds a powerful sway over Doug and his crew but we never know why. It's left rather unexplained how such a sickly old man could hold young, powerful toughs so firmly under his thumb. Old girlfriend Krista, played by a seemingly miscast Blake Lively, is woefully underdeveloped. All we know about her is that she's a train wreck and that she longs for Doug. And Lively is a little too glamorous to do train wreck very well. Jon Hamm plays the lead FBI agent who is no different from any other FBI agent you've seen in a movie like this. And even Claire, the new love of Doug's life and the woman who is really the key to the whole story, is pretty much a blank slate. Doug obviously forms an emotional connection with her. We in the audience never do.
So there are some things you wish The Town did better. But there are many things which it does very, very well. It opens with a Dark Knight-esque bang with a thrilling opening heist scene. The other robberies later on in the film are well done too, Affleck proving he can be an action director. While we may struggle to identify with some of the other characters Doug's plight is very easy to relate to and with his portrayal Affleck creates a very sympathetic character out of a guy who is involved in some rather nasty business. Well done that is. There is the sense that the movie drags some between the big action sequences. The romance between Doug and Claire, and the conflict it causes between Doug and Jem, isn't always enough to sustain the film's energy as it moves forward. Affleck and Renner work together very well, and there's really nothing wrong with Rebecca Hall's performance as Claire either, but the story never fully engages the way you'd hope it would. And with so much of the focus on these three characters everyone else gets the short shrift. And that comes back to bite Affleck in the end when train wreck Krista is put in position to make a decision that sets the whole final act in motion. We haven't spent enough time with Krista for it to ring true that the whole movie suddenly gets tossed in her lap. It all can be a little frustrating at times. You know this movie could've been better. Maybe by starring as well as directing Affleck stretched himself a little thin. But even accounting for the flaws it does have The Town is still an entertaining, well-made film. Could've been better but still manages to be pretty good when all is said and done.