The No. 1 movie in the nation has all the makings of what action-seeking moviegoers seem to want nowadays: car chases, fight scenes and large-scale heists. In “The Town,” Ben Affleck follows his “Gone Baby Gone” directorial debut in another
The No. 1 movie in the nation has all the makings of what action-seeking moviegoers seem to want nowadays: car chases, fight scenes and large-scale heists.
In “The Town,” Ben Affleck follows his “Gone Baby Gone” directorial debut in another Boston-based crime drama.
A gritty, violent and at-times-slow adaptation of Chuck Hogan’s novel with a screenplay co-written by Affleck, “The Town” is based on a group of career criminal “Townies” who grew up in the Charlestown housing projects together.
Looking for their way out, whether by that next big job or by finding a way to run away from it all, this crew knocks off banks, armored trucks and finally the mother lode of targets: Fenway Park.
Reminiscent of good-guy, bad-guy movies such as “Heat” or “The Departed,” “The Town” also bears resemblance to cheesier serial-bank-robber movies lacking teeth, such as “Point Break” (though instead of dead-president costumes, they wear gimmick-y old nun masks while donning AK-47s — just in time for Halloween).
Though Affleck doesn’t leave his Boston comfort zone, kudos are due him for his ability to capture a less-high-brow, romanticized version of it, showing the seedy underbelly of a blue-collar, gangster-run Irish neighborhood. In this case, Charlestown is run by “The Florist,” Fergus Colm, a heartless sadist (Pete Postlethwaite).
It’s a lifelong struggle for Affleck’s character, Doug, to try to get out from under the control of Fergie, and for him it’s more than personal, as Fergie ran the lives of both of Doug’s parents as well.
But the criminal life also has become the norm for Doug, as his best friend, Jem (Jeremy Renner, of “The Hurt Locker”), and Jem’s sister, Krista (Blake Lively), are not only accomplices, but serve as a surrogate dysfunctional family of sorts for Doug, who lost his mother at a young, impressionable age.
But it’s when a masked Doug takes bank manager Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall, of “Frost Nixon”) hostage, that life as a career criminal starts to get complicated, as he realizes there could be something more for him elsewhere in life.
Though it’s easy to say the potential couple has their odds stacked against them (being taken hostage is less than a charming first date) the chemistry is there, as Claire is in a highly emotionally charged and fragile state when she meets Doug.
However, it’s tough to tell at first just how an impressively reserved Doug feels about Claire. It’s also difficult to empathize at times with this supposed anti-hero, as he is such a deceitful, duplicitous character.
He is a convincing victim, however, when he recounts the tale of his mother walking out on him as a child bearing little more than Underoos and his heart on his sleeve, while his chain-smoking larcenist of a father (Chris Cooper) sat by and didn’t sugar coat the situation or do anything to console him.
As for the “good guys” of the movie, Jon Hamm delivers arguably the best performance of the film as special agent Adam Frawley with some of the best one-liners the movie has to offer, (“We won’t get a warrant unless these criminals convert to Islam”). A savvy government employee, Frawley proves to be a worthy adversary with both his oft-cited witticisms and wickedly attuned street-smarts.
Scenes are also stolen by Lively, who does a heartening job of playing Krista, a hardened, glassy-eyed single mom whose been dealt an unfair lot in life to say the least.
In one such scene, she is considering cutting a deal with the FBI in order to keep her daughter when she asks poignantly, “Why am I always the one getting used?”
But perhaps the best part of this movie is what some might argue is an equally annoying aspect, in that it doesn’t attempt to tie up all the loose ends and present a tight, finished package.
Instead (spoiler alert), the main couple doesn’t run off into the sunset together, but parts ways, with the hint at the possibility of them finding each other again.
Overall, “The Town” presents an archetypal Boston that packs a punch decent enough for matinee, but lacks the pace to keep one awake late into the evening.
