The Town
DIR: Ben Affleck • WRI: Peter Craig, Ben Affleck, Aaron Stockard • PRO: Basil Iwanyk, Graham King • ED: Dylan Tichenor • DOP: Robert Elswit • DES: Sharon Seymour • CAST: Ben Affleck, Blake Lively, Jeremy Renner
At last, those two charming young boys that wrote Good Will Hunting have come of age. Ben was a little slower in his maturation but his is all the sweeter for it. After the suspiciously good Gone, Baby, Gone; Affleck has cemented his gifted directing chops with The Town. The days of ‘bennifer’ are gone, baby, gone and Matt and Ben have (separately) earned their collective moniker of ‘men’.
The Town is based on Chuck Hogan’s acclaimed novel Prince of Thieves and Affleck is able to build a solid feature atop these foundations. The town in question is Charlestown; a square-mile neighbourhood in Boston, which has produced more bank robbers than anywhere else in the world. Our story centres around one particularly talented team, masterminded by local boy Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck). The film opens on one such masked bank robbery where they are forced to take the manager Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) hostage while they escape. When Doug’s team mate and close friend Jem (Jeremy Renner) discovers that Claire lives nearby and could potentially identify them he wants to take care of her in the Tony Soprano sense. Doug intervenes and falls for her which puts his whole team in jeopardy. All the while the FBI led by Adam Frawley (Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm) is building a case which could spell an end to the team’s clean run.
Having co-written, played the lead role and directed this film, Affleck has really excelled himself in each department. Given that Affleck grew up in Boston himself, the script feels suitably authentic and natural. In a high tension film about bank robbery is it all too easy to end each sentence with an orchestral jolt and have your actors chewing through bank vaults but Affleck manages to maintain the humanity of his characters. The direction is highly impressive and the influence of Michael Mann’s Heat in undeniable but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The cityscape of Boston resembles the clean lines of Mann’s Los Angeles and The Town’s robberies are equally reminiscent of Heat‘s with exhilarating and realistic shoot-outs. Affleck even manages to hold his own on the acting front amid a very strong cast. Renner is particularly memorable as the unpredictable and violent Jem.
Following the remarkably well aged Good Will Hunting and more recent Gone, Baby, Gone; The Town continues Affleck’s successful partnership with Boston. The Town is a thrilling story of community and crime. Watch this space because I predict big things in this director’s future.
Peter White
Rated 15A (see IFCO website for details)
The Town is released on 24th September 2010
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Category: Cinema Reviews, Reviews
