A big surprise

Rating: 7/10 (5 January 2011)

Ben Affleck's second try as a director- after his successful debut(Gone Baby Gone) - The Town is one of the biggest surprises of this year.It is about a gang located in Charlestown(neighborhood in Boston) who attempts impressive robberies on banks and trucks that carry a lot of money with high ingenuity and technique.The film focuses on the lives of the members of the gang and especially the "leader" named Doug and his best friend and partner James.Doug is a man known in the local police department,his father is in jail and his drug-addict mother committed suicide when he was six years old and the only relationship he has with his wife is only casual sex.His life turns to become even more complicated when he falls in love with Claire;The employee who was taken as a hostage in the last bank robbery Doug and his partners committed.Then Doug tries to get away from the gang along side with Claire,who by the way doesn't know that Doug was the man that took her hostage.Unfortunately Doug can't escape from his past,Claire finds out who he really is while Doug's gang is about to commit their biggest robbery.As everybody would expect,the police is being informed about that and Doug and his partners are getting themselves surrounded by all(so to speak) of the Boston police department's officer and FBI's agents.As a result everybody in the gang except of Doug is getting killed.After that,Claire betrays Doug but he makes it and finally gets away.To sum up the movie is very,very good(taking into consideration the time being's criteria),the rhythm of the movie is very quick and doesn't let you to get bored,not for a second,the interpretations are very good especially by Doug(Ben Affleck) and James(Jeremy Renner),and the action scenes are very well-directed with many references on classic movies.To cut the long story short,The Town is one of the best movies of the year and contains everything a crime movie must posses.