Another Strong Vehicle For Ben Affleck To Showcase His Filmmaking Aptitude. Tense, Exciting & Thrilling.

Rating: Null/10 (23 June 2017)

Riding on the momentum provided by its consistent dose of intensely gripping action, The Town is a tense, thrilling & entertaining crime thriller that, despite leaving none of the genre clichés on the sidelines, succeeds in keeping a firm grip on the viewers' attention and is more engaging than one expects.
Set in Charlestown, a breeding ground for armed robbers, the story of The Town follows a gang of four lifelong friends who, after a series of successful bank robberies and close encounters with the police, set out to finish one final heist. But monitoring them closely is an FBI agent who's all set to bring them down.
Co-written, directed by & starring Ben Affleck, The Town serves as another vehicle for the actor to showcase his filmmaking talents and there's plenty in the picture that attest to his eye for creating kinetically charged sequences that brim with excitement & tension. Affleck's direction is quite lean during moments of action but not so in the dramatic portions.
While Michael Mann's Heat is an obvious inspiration, the overcast ambiance & setting is lifted from other notable crime thrillers. The story is riveting when it's dealing with the group's interactions or next assignments but loses interest whenever it attempts to focus on their separate lives. There's a lot that it could've done without, for those scenes only end up hampering its overall effectiveness.
Coming to the performances, The Town packs a talented ensemble in Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, John Hamm, Blake Lively & Pete Postlethwaite, with Renner leaving the most lasting impression of them all with a strong, stellar input. Affleck plays his part responsibly, Hall does well with what she's given, Hamm is just as good while Postlethwaite greatly impresses in his brief part.
On an overall scale, The Town is thoroughly captivating, is expertly directed & benefits a lot from Jeremy Renner's show-stealing performance but it could've been much more if its drama was half as compelling as its masterly choreographed action segments. Nevertheless, Affleck's sophomore directorial effort further sharpens his filmmaking skills, has got more positives than negatives, and is going to satisfy most viewers, if not all. Definitely worth a watch.