One of Ben Affleck's best movies

Rating: 9/10 (14 April 2017)

"The Town" isn't the very best heist movie that I have ever seen but it is one of them and is also a very interesting movie to watch, and it has a plot line that can be pretty hard to follow at times but despite that it still works as a whole movie. This is the second movie directed by Ben Affleck before he directed "Argo" (2012) which is the best of the two movies that I saw that were directed by him. Not only does Affleck direct but he also stars as a man named Doug MacRay a native of Boston, Massachusetts who is a criminal who specializes in robbing banks and other places. MacRay's best friend since childhood and trusted cohort is James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner) of which they get along very well and treat each other like the brothers they never were. As the film opens we see a bank robbery in progress in a Charlestown bank where the robbers dress up in creepy costumes and they force the bank manager who is a young woman named Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) who is then abducted and then released. After the first robbery MacRay starts to fall in love with Keesey after seeing James's sister Krista (Blake Lively) who also happens to be a drug addict. After the first robbery the case is sent to the local FBI and the investigation is headed by Special Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) and then a whole lot of other robberies happen probably in order to screw up the investigation which is my personal interpretation. The man in charge of the robberies is a flower shop owner named Fergus Colm (Pete Postlethwaite)who may have Irish mob connections. The backstory to this movie the relationship between Doug and Claire which is really nice to watch despite knowing the fact that violence will eventually happen. The most effective scene in the movie is where Doug talks to his father Stephen (Chris Cooper) in prison and is wondering about his mom and then that gets his dad really mad. I congratulate Affleck for making this movie and succeeding because in my opinion he has entered an elite class of directors who know how to make a really good heist movie (the other two being Spike Lee and Sidney Lumet), there are many good things about the movie which is the story which was adapted from Chuck Hogan's novel "Prince of Thieves" which I didn't read before seeing this movie, the performances are very good throughout, and the heist scenes and the love story keep this movie on the high ground. The one major problem that I had with this movie and prevented this movie from getting a 10th star was the feeling I had that Affleck and his writers rushed into things while making this movie without explanation of what was going on throughout the movie, otherwise there was nothing else wrong with the movie. Ben Affleck is a very skilled director, writer , and a good actor, and I hope that someday he does another really good heist movie but one that is even better than this one.