‘The Town’ (2010)

Anyone who has read all of my posts so far may have noticed a pattern: when I see a movie that I would not recommend to my readers I have no qualms about completely divulging to you the entire plot of the film. In these situations HFB becomes more of a space for film analysis, considering most published “reviews” are meant as tools to aid the public in deciding whether or not to see a movie, and when I sit down to write a negative review I’ve already decided you’re not going to see that film. Maybe it comes from egotism, or better yet from my complete and utter confidence that my opinion, once written, should be your opinion as well, but my complete disclosure policy in negative reviews does result in me having a hell of lot of fun explaining why the movie sucked so hard. I don’t know what it is about writing to destroy, but vicious, vitriolic invectives just flow from the fingers so easily, and with such glee. Maybe that’s why celebrity roasts are their own television event and lifetime achievement awards are treated as the ideal time to go make a delicious spiral ham sandwich during the Oscars.

But when I see a movie that I think is worthy of your hard earned money, I switch modes from analysis to review, and keep the plot twists and oh-my-god-it turns-out-the-killer-wasn’t-dead endings to myself. And so it is that I highly recommend to you ‘The Town’, directed, co-written, and starring Ben Affleck. Based on the novel ‘Prince of Thieves’  by Chuck Hogan, it is a tense, emotionally driven heist thriller carried by exquisitely acted three dimensional characters.  Affleck and his close childhood friend, played by Jeremy Renner, are the leaders of a crew of Charlestown bank robbers. Their trade was handed down to them by the the older generation, and while appearing to be blue collar gravel pit workers they have actually confidently mastered dad’s business. The expected cop-pursues-criminals drama plays out with Jon Hamm playing the FBI agent leading the investigation, but the heart of the story revolves around Affleck falling for a blindfolded temporary hostage, played by Rebecca Hall, and the two sides of his subsequent double life each threatening to destroy the other.

The most remarkable part about ‘The Town’, or at least the part that first jumps to my mind when trying to describe it, is the sustained atmosphere it creates of edge-of-your seat tension. The movie opens with a bang, immediately putting you on alert with a shot of adrenaline. While that feeling cools off for the exposition, it never fully dissipates, and in every following scene there is the feeling of a rope being pulled slowly tighter and tighter, with fibers snapping like gun shots. It is this ability to create an atmosphere, whether it is of tension or fear, that permeates a film and becomes a characteristic unique from its constituent parts that is so rare in most widely released movies. It’s more important in some genres than in others (when I’m watching a horror film it’s the most important quality I look for), but when it is present in a movie the difference is usually noticeable.

Bad actors can be saved by a great script, and great actors can elevate a terrible script, but what we have in ‘The Town’ is actors giving great performances with a fantastic script. Any trepidation in proclaiming Ben Affleck’s revival after his directorial debut ‘Gone  Baby Gone’ (2007) has been erased. His immediate hiatus from a promising career started by ‘Good Will Hunting’ (1997)  led to a journey of taking smaller roles in good films (‘Shakespeare In Love’ (1998)) and leading roles in atrocious films (‘Daredevil’ (2003), among others). But with ‘The Town’ he has returned to the brilliant form that took the stage at the Academy Awards with Matt Damon and accepted the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and he now represents a triple threat of writing, directing, and acting. The pacing he sets is expert; he moves the story forward steadily, not stopping too long on any scene or breezing through moments inappropriately, and even using steady long shots to give the actors opportunity for monologues. The script matches this, functioning to tell a story and tell it well. No dialogue is wasted, but what is said sounds simultaneously genuine and literary.

Every major actor in the the movie gives an above average performance, including Blake Lively, playing Jeremy Renner’s drugged out younger sister. A long way from the CW, Lively gives a convincing portrait of a young woman whose upbringing in a tough neighborhood has led her to a life of drugs, alcohol, and young motherhood, and she gives one of the movie’s most heart wrenching moments as she plays a pivotal role in the fate of our bank robbers. John Hamm brings his steadying, masculine presence from ‘Mad Men’, but the frustrated FBI agent role offers him the least complexity of all the characters. The most powerful performance in the film came from Jeremy Renner. Clearly drawing from the same wells that fueled his Oscar nominated performance in ‘The Hurt Locker’ (2008), Renner plays a go-for-broke, violent ex-con that recently got out of prison after serving nine years for murder. His energy is hot and palpable, and in each of his scenes you can feel he is itching to knock over this teetering Jenga tower of a story. It will be interesting to see how his career develops, and whether he can play anything other than half-crazed, antagonistic loose cannons. If he can’t it really won’t matter, because he does it better than almost anyone.

‘The Town’ emotionally invests you in flawed characters, so that as they go through the moral dilemmas of the film you do too. You’re genuinely rooting for Affleck at the same time that you’re recognizing the wrong in what he’s doing in both his life as a bank robber and his new life with Hall. That dualism is an extraordinary feat, and one we don’t usually find wrapped up in an exciting, gripping crime drama.

I can’t wait to see what Affleck does next.

-Patrick O’Roark