Affleck’s Town a Well-Constructed Cliché
Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) robs banks. He and his crew, including hotheaded best friend Jem (Jeremy Renner), are better at it than just about anyone, so good in fact that F.B.I. Agent Frawley (Jon Hamm) has singled them out as Boston’s most wanted putting all his attention to putting them behind bars.
Rebecca Hall and Ben Affleck in The Town © Warner Bros.
Most of that is thanks to their most recent score. During the heist they found themselves forced to take assistant bank manager Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall), and while they let her go the entire team worries, especially Jem, that she might have seen something that could put Frawley onto their trail.
At first Doug wants to just keep tabs on the woman, checking out her residence, following her to a local laundry mat. But after a chance meeting goes in unexpected direction the career criminal suddenly finds himself falling in love with Claire, their blossoming relationship making him realize he wants to leave this world of violence behind and move his life into an entirely new direction.
Based on the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan, The Town Ben Affleck’s directorial follow up to his Oscar-nominated winner Gone Baby Gone. It is filled with strong, mesmerizing performances and has a multitude of sensational set pieces full of energy and passion. The movie makes me believe for certain that Affleck is a filmmaker who will one day, probably quite soon, construct a motion picture that borders on the classic. He is a director to watch, proving once and far all that Academy Award he has sitting on his mantle for co-writing Good Will Hunting wasn’t so much a fluke as it was a precursor of the greatness to come.
Sadly, even with as many positives as it has, The Town is not that film. The movie is almost unbearably derivative (especially of Michael Mann’s Heat, but also of at least a half dozen other crime thrillers I could think off at the top of my head), the conclusion steeped in so much melodrama I admit to finding it virtually unbearable. Many of the subplots feel included for almost no reason whatsoever, and if it weren’t for the quality of the acting I doubt I’d have been able to suffer through it all the way until the end.
My main problem has to do with the love story. After setting things up with an elegant, highly believable simplicity Affleck and company decide to take it for granted that Doug and Claire’s romance would just continue to blossom. Problem is, I never quite felt like it did, so when things ultimately take their turn and Frawley enters the picture the decisions both of them make don’t feel as near as genuine as they need to in order to meet with success.
It also doesn’t help that the general storyline is one I’ve seen so many times I could plot it all out in my sleep. Nothing that happens is a relative surprise, and from the growing dysfunction inside Doug’s crew to Frawley’s almost comical doggedness I knew what was going to happen long before any of the characters did.
But the acting is universally excellent, Remmer in particular stealing every scene he’s in with a ferocity that is both scary and exhilarating. His is without a doubt the most interesting character to watch, and even though he’s also the most clichéd there is just something about the portrayal that rises above the familiarity to become something intriguing and real.
The heists themselves are also wonderfully depicted, especially the opening one inside Claire’s bank. It starts the film out on an electrically stimulating note, bringing me right to the edge of my seat in the first few minutes. There is also a mid-movie car chase that echoes those found in the worlds of Frankenheimer, Freidkin and Greengrass, and although it ends on something of a bummer note (the police act with freakish stupidity) I can’t say for a second that while it was going on I was anything less than awestruck.
As good as all this is (and I haven’t even mentioned the supporting work of Blake Lively and Pete Postlethwaite, both of whom knock it out of the park) The Town left far too much of a bad taste in my mouth for me to be able to be okay with its multitude of faults. It’s a workmanlike production constructed with skill, but the emotional connection needed to make it worthwhile just never materializes. Affleck has talented behind the camera, so much I can’t wait to see what he’s got up his sleeve next, but even with that being so his latest cinematic heist is in the end one I didn’t want to remain a part of.
Film Rating: êê (out of 4)
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