The Town (2010)
Certified: 18
Duration: 123 minutes
Directed by: Ben Affleck
Starring: Ben Affleck, Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper
KRS release

It seems you can take the man out of Boston but not Boston out of the man! Ben Affleck’s rise to fame kicked off in 1997 with Good Will Hunting which was set in Boston and was written by him and childhood friend Matt Damon. In 2007 he made his directorial debut with the brilliant Gone Baby Gone, which was also set in Boston.

Now along comes The Town, adapted from Chuck Hogan’s Prince of Thieves: A Novel. It is also set in Boston and has a screenplay by Mr Affleck, Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard.

Mr Affleck also stars as Doug MacRay, a once aspiring hockey player who is now the most prolific of robbers in the Boston neighbourhood of Charlestown. He seems to be following in the footsteps of his father Stephen (Chris Cooper) who is in prison. Doug works for a very powerful crime lord named Fergus Colm (Pete Postlethwaite), for whom his father had worked too. Doug and his crew – Albert “Gloansy” (Slaine), Desmond (Owen Burke) and his best friend James “Jem” (James Renner) – have just pulled a job at a local bank. There Jem had taken the bank manager, Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall), as hostage. They soon find out that she lives just a few blocks away from them and is being interviewed by the FBI. They wore masks during the heist but fear she might recognise them anyway.

So Doug decides to approach Claire to see what she knows, however, he soon starts falling for her… and he already has an affair with Jem’s sister, Krista (Blake Lively).

All of a sudden, he starts thinking that maybe the path he has chosen is not the right one for him and maybe he should be doing something different. But there is no way escaping from the FBI.

The Town has many elements of the heist genre: anguished criminal hero, the love angle, the ties between friends, etc, yet it feels to be a fresh and, at the same time, personal film. If there were one other film with which I can associate Mr Affleck’s film, it would be Heat (1995). However, The Town is less epic and artistic. It is propelled forward by a very strong ensemble cast: Jeremy Renner last seen in The Hurt Locker; Jon Hamm from the series Mad Men as the cop is also spot on; while Pete Postlethwaite as the crime boss is magnificent.

Usually the love interest angle is short played in such a movie but here it is actually one of the film’s strong points. There seems to be genuine connection between Mr Affleck and Rebecca Hall. It’s strange how Mr Affleck seems more romantic here than in the romantic comedies he has featured in.

He also seems more confident in his directorial role as he lays out his shots better and has more eye for detail. At times he seems to be following Clint Eastwood’s style of sparse, no nonsense and efficient direction. He lets the plot and tension escalate, not really forcing his hand and each heist accomplished increases the stakes and also the viewer’s ­interest.

More than being a heist movie, The Town is first and foremost about a neighbourhood, where friends’ lives intertwine, and where a heist incidentally ­happens.