The Town (2010)
Director - Ben Affleck
Starring - Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall & Jeremy Renner
3.5 stars
First things first, it’s important to note that there is nothing terribly unique about the premise behind The Town. It’s founded on a common plot, familiar motives and customary settings. The characters, although always fresh with a new driver behind them, aren’t dissimilar to your typical crew that you would expect in your everyday heist film. So normally you would expect this to be quite a mundane and tired movie experience, and that’s where you’re wrong. The Town uses quite a number of recognisable themes that have been flogged on screen for years but still has the ability to soundly entertain.
Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) is a long time thief. As is mentioned, in Boston, the thieving way of life is handed down through the generations. It’s almost like a hereditary illness (or gift, depend how you want to look at it). As he juggles a relationship with a bank manager who was a victim of a previous heist, MacRay realises that his life is going nowhere in a hurry. Still, getting out of the business isn’t as easy as just walking out. When you lead a dangerous life, dangerous consequences are always just around the corner and for MacRay, he knows that he must complete this one last job if he’s ever going to be able to turn a new page. As you would expect though, that final job is always the big one, and with the shaky James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner) as his right hand man, the FBI hot on his trail and an ex girlfriend who doesn’t know what’s best, getting out of the business was always going to be far more complex than it should be.
So there’s no doubting that this idea has been more or less done before (bar the minor tweaks of a generic plot that are only humanly possible to occur) but half the beauty of The Town is that it is more than happy to accept this fate. I’m not suggesting for one second that the idea has been copied from other film (although it is important to mention that the screenplay is based on the Chuck Hogan novel ‘Prince of Thieves’) but you only have to watch the trailer, read the plot or see an advertisement to know that it’s not ground breaking, revolutionary cinema. As we all know, cinema nowadays doesn’t have to be revolutionary to be enjoyed. Sure, 3D is adding a bit of spice to our viewing and the emergence of the imagery in Avatar was a haven for the eyes, but it’s impossible to doubt the brilliance of getting lost in a narrative. The Town, along with the aid of professional acting, plays on this notion with a pinch of success.
The idea behind the plot is sound. The audience can very easily track and follow proceedings without getting lost in irrelevant information and a flurry of minor characters. The ability to follow a story with ease is incredibly underrated and although having an intellectual film that works to test the audience can pay massive dividends when done effectively, it no doubt walks a fine line. So along with a plausible and traceable set up, the work of Mr Ben Affleck is also commendable.
It’s hard to fathom the magnitude of the workload that one must undertake when writing, directing and starring in a film but it becomes clear that one thing is for sure: you must live and breath the narrative. Affleck was clearly very close to the idea from the get go and it definitely came out on screen. His character, although the lead, stood out above the rest. This takes nothing away from the other actors – both Jeremy Renner and Blake Lively were also very good – but you did feel a difference between them. This can work both ways. It’s impossible not to applaud Affleck for his work. The man is genuine talent (common knowledge that all movie goers will know prior to even watching The Town) and his work in this film was amazing. Still, when you notice a gap between the abilities of actors working on the same film you can easily slip out of movie world and back into reality. Nobody wants to know they are watching a film when they are watching it (stupid as it may sound). They want to be entranced and embedded into the storyline. That entrancement is what all film makers want to be able to capture. Sadly for me, The Town didn’t quite cast its spell on me.
With all due respect, I thoroughly enjoyed what I saw. It was a pleasant cinema experience, but the whole time I was very conscious I was watching a film. Did it have twists? Not really. Did it need twists? No. A lot of this narrative felt very familiar but still allowed itself to be enjoyed. A lot of people will really like The Town especially if you are a fan of heist films or Ben Affleck. In fact, I can’t really imagine anybody walking out of a session and genuinely hating what they have just seen. It’s hard to go wrong and as a result, they’ve got it right. It was a safe choice, but a good one. And that’s the same notion you can take into account if you a tossing up whether to watch it for yourself or not.
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