TIFF Movie Review: The Town (2010)
A decent movie you won't mind paying to see
Photo: Warner Bros.
Ben Affleck returns to the director's chair after his excellent 2007 directorial debut Gone Baby Gone with The Town. Again he takes to the streets of Boston, this time focusing on a crew of bank robbers who've gained the attention of the FBI. The film is technically efficient, but it never quite rises to any level of greatness as much as it keeps an even keel throughout. The Town is a satisfying watch, but not exactly memorable.
The cast includes Ben Affleck, Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper and Titus Welliver. For more information on this film including pictures, trailers and a detailed synopsis choose from the following menu.
Review
"The Town" is a Warner Bros. release, directed by Ben Affleck and is rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, some sexuality and drug use. The running time is 2 hours 5 minutes.
The twist of the story revolves around Claire (Rebecca Hall), a bank manager Doug and his crew take hostage during the film's opening sequence. Realizing she lives in their neighborhood and may be able to point them out, she's looked at as a threat and when Doug agrees to look into the situation the two eventually fall in love.
Dogged by the FBI, led by a relentless performance by Jon Hamm ("Mad Men"), Doug and his boys continue to pull jobs, each escalating in the number of lives lost and bullets used. Each heist offers minor turning points in the story, ever so slightly escalating the plot along the way, but never doing enough to ratchet up the tension to a point you find yourself too involved in the story. Instead you watch with a mild interest and as the film comes to a close you graciously exit the theater, happy the movie wasn't a bust, but realizing it never hit you where it counts.
Affleck's work as an actor is something I've always looked at as hit or miss, but whenever he's dealing with his hometown, such as here, it always comes across more legitimate. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker), plays Affleck's right hand man and lifelong friend James Coughlin. James is a bit of a wild card and Renner does right by the character, and for that matter the entire cast turns in good performances, but perhaps a little more energy would've brought more life to this picture.
The only actor that shows any serious amount of emotion is Hamm in his discontent with the progress of their investigation. Otherwise, the only registered heartbeat the film has is during the three heist sequences. The Town has the feel of a small neighborhood feature trying to be a much bigger story than it really is. The heists don't add enough "big movie" feel to the relatively small story where not a whole lot is really going on.
The script, co-written by Affleck, Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard, has brief moments of greatness and you can tell Affleck had a hand in it, particularly during the more intimate moments between his character and Rebecca Hall. Flirtatious jokes that would've worked just as well inside Affleck's Oscar-winning screenplay for Good Will Hunting are included, just as is the brotherly camaraderie between he and Renner. However, the emotional connection just isn't there. This film depends too much on you caring for these characters and while they are very well fleshed out in terms of understanding their backgrounds, not enough is done to make you really care about where they're lives are headed.
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i want to hear about conviction asap!
Regardless of the C, this is still one of my highly anticipated movies. But I've just gotta ask. Even though you gave it a C, do you see any oscar-opportunities in any of the performances? Jeremy Renner, Chris Cooper, Rebecca Hall or dare I say Ben Affleck?
Jon Hamm is the most amazing actor on television and if he is anything as good as he is in Mad Men, then he should immediately go for the Oscar and win it.
So what do you think? Any golden midgets in this movie's future?
it's no good
Hey brad, i really wanna see this but i was wondering, does this have ridiculous amounts of swearing like the departed. i loved the departed but got annoyed with the huge amount of swearing in it. i know it says pervesive language on the rating and im worried that it will have that much. can you just tell how bad the swearing is. Thanks!
I hope this ends up good. It has gotten pretty good reviews on RT so far.
so can anybody answer my question?
IDK, but you could wait for after it's release. Then you could check with it's IMDB page under "Parents Guide". On which people will post specifics about the movie's sex and nudity, violence and gore, profanity, alchohol/drugs/smoking, and frightening/intense scenes.
According to "kids in mind" they score both movies a 10 out of 10 on their profanity scale.
"The Departed" is described as having "226 F-words and its derivatives" while "The Town" has "About 141 F-words and its derivatives".
I pretty much agree with every word of this review. I had high hopes for this one and while I enjoyed the movie as it was going on and thought it showed moments of greatness, it really just never came together for me.
Even worse was the conversation I had with a friend of mine, whose opinion I normally respect but for some reason we've found almost no common ground on any movie this year. This was no different, he loved The Town, which I honestly can't see.
I agree with Brad on this review almost word for word. Only I have personal issues with Ben Affleck… I hope he would stay behind the camera from now on. He seems to be a much better director than an actor.
Ben Affleck sure has come a long way from his days as Matt Damon's apparently goofy sidekick.
I watched this in Toronto and it was given a 14A rating. No way should this be a 14A!!!
Just saw it. And I have to say, I enjoyed it. I found it very thrilling. I was in the edge of my seat. The one thing I disliked about it was its extremely soft ending. I was thinking the movie would end with Ben's character either getting arrested, getting killed, or some sort of harder ending. But the whole romantic, soft, ending really turned me off. The ending just didn't work for me. However, I'll give it a 8/10, regardless.
a c+? come on. at least a b- hahah
I’m pretty much a lonely voice in the wilderness here, as I feel differently about The Town than many, if not most people do. For starters, I read Chuck Hogan’s novel, Prince of Thieves, on which The Town was based, and I liked the book far better than the movie, which seemed like an extended made-for-TV and very cartoon-like film.
The Town had the potential for being one of the all-time greats regarding movies, but fell woefully short of that potential for the following reasons:
A) The scenes in the North End and Fenway Park were grossly overblown, with too much exploding on the screen, and the most unrealistic-looking car chases and car crashes and shoot-outs. Nobody could realistically survive those car crashes and shoot-outs.
B) The fact that Ben Affleck and his assistant producer(s) wanted to cut the film down from four hours is totally understandable, but too much slip-shod, slap-happy editing was done, cutting too much out of the film and leaving too many unconnected dots, which, had they been connected, might’ve made this film more credible.
C) The Boston accents, particularly on the part of Ben Affleck, were extremely overdone.
D) The characters, overall, were paper-thin, and the chemistry between Affleck and Hall, was paltry, at best, and rather forced.
E) The scene where Doug and Jem break into a housing project apartment where a couple of punks who’d thrown bottles at Claire as she was walking through the housing project to work resided, beat up and permanently crippled both of them, was not in the book, and it was an unnecessary scene, to boot. Roughing the two punks up a little bit would’ve been understandable, maybe, but Doug and Jem went too far when they permanently crippled them both, and then ordered them to “get out of Charlestown.”
F) The ending of the movie, was rather saccharine..and phony, to boot. It would’ve been better if the ending had been different; Doug being caught and sent to prison, where he belonged, and Claire being criminally prosecuted, or put on some sort of probation herself for having abetted Doug and helped him get away.
I also might add that I’m somewhat bothered by the message that The Town seems to send; that it’s OK to rob banks and armored cars, terrorize and endanger the lives and safety of innocent bank employees and customers at gunpoint, to abet these kinds of actions and behaviors, and to make total dupes of law enforcement officials who are trying their best to do what they’ve been assigned to do; bring guys like Doug MacRay and his men to justice.
I also might add that the movie could’ve done with far less of the Doug/Claire romance, and further developed the characters and the bank heists. Too much emphasis was put on the Doug/Claire romance, and not enough on the heists. I liked the beginning of the film and the first heist, but after that, it began to rapidly go downhill for me.
One is supposed to sympathize with and root for Doug because he managed to get away, and for Claire for having abetted Doug and helped him escape justice in this film, but I feel that I really cannot do so. Imo, Claire should’ve been more on her guard and not readily accepted a date from a perfect stranger, especially after being traumatized enough by the robbery and abduction to quit her job as a bank manager.
Claire was also wrong to continue to have contact with Doug and to abet him in his crimes even after learning the truth about him, and after the Feds learned of the Doug/Claire relationship through a recorded phone conversation between them, and for keeping the duffel bag full of stolen money that Doug left for her, instead of turning it into the police, at least anonymously. My opinion of this film was formed after watching it several times–a couple of times in the theatres, and then afew more times, on DVD.
The idea of a professional armed robber who’s also a wanted fugitive falling in love with, and defending a poor, scared, vulnerable female bank manager that he and his men robbed at gunpoint and then took as a hostage, from thugs who threw bottles at her is highly, highly implausible to me. That would never, ever happen in real life. I know the film is fiction, but come on…there’s got to be some reality in there, which seemed to be totally lacking in this film.