Movie Review: The Town

If you asked me five years ago whether or not Ben Affleck might be the next director to look out for, I would have called you an idiot. For good reason, I might add, considering the fact that actor/directors that manage to crank out any more than a single solid film are difficult to come by. With Affleck's second film, The Town, he manages to bring some fresh blood to the heist thriller subgenre.

It's obvious from the very first robbery that Affleck knows what he's dealing with. While many of the biggest action scenes could easily be compared to scenes in Heat or Ronin, there's a tangible feeling of originality despite the genre's tropes. This may be due to the fact that each theft is artfully executed in ways mirroring some of the scenes in Ocean's Eleven, yet these thieves don't come off as arrogant wizards in the process.

Affleck not only directs The Town, but he's also the lead character. Alongside Jeremy Renner, Owen Burke, and Slaine, Affleck leads his team of criminals with a clear head and mind for tactics. Each member has their own specialty which contributes to the integrity of the unit, similar to in other heist films. All of these performances are quite solid, though Jeremy Renner steals the show with his half-psychotic, half-sympathetic role as the team's brute.

Affleck's character isn't quite the criminal he once was, though, as it appears he's finally waking up from a nightmare. In the first robbery of the film, he requires the compliance of the bank's assistant manager to open the locked vault, though she's clearly shocked into a state of near paralysis. As soon as he gently encourages her to help them, it becomes apparent that this softie just doesn't belong.

After they make their escape, the crew isn't sure what to do with the assistant manager, played by Rebecca Hall. While Renner suggests the sloppy method of killing her, Affleck steps in and offers to follow her until he figures out whether or not she can be trusted to not reveal anything to the FBI. Before long, Hall ends up meeting him, leading to an unlikely budding relationship.

While the big kink in the works isn't necessarily the most believable plot device ever, the relationship between rough-around-the-edges Doug MacCray and new-to-town Claire Keesey manages to be effective due to the exemplary performances of their respective actors. In fact, the characters and the relationships between them is essentially the strongest glue that holds this movie together, allowing some of the smaller faults to be easily ignored.

If relationships aren't your thing, The Town still brings a lot to the table. Each robbery is performed with a level of inherent mastery that's fun to watch, whether it comes down to the ingenious ways to cover tracks or one of the best car chase scenes in recent history. Half of the fun of heist flicks are the heists themselves and on that note, this one delivers in dividends.

Many people might visit the theater in hopes of seeing Jon Hamm deliver a Mad Men-caliber performance in a cinematic setting and I regret to say that they might be let down. This is in large part due to the fact that Hamm's character is the bumbling, bombastic FBI agent who leads up the case on hunting down these serial bank robbers. Unfortunately, he's not given too much room to impress, though he does manage to deliver one of the most entertaining yet threatening dialogues with Affleck in the whole film.

Heist movies are a tricky subject for me to review due to my love of the genre. Many offer the same formula with slight iterations and perhaps a shiny new gimmick, leading to very little innovation in the space. Some may argue that The Town adheres to this same formula, but I must insist that Ben Affleck has done something more with his second film. The character interaction adds stakes to a genre which doesn't often get past the hurdle of human greed, resulting in a much more thrilling experience. While The Town isn't perfect by any stretch, it's more than enough to prove Affleck's talent and earn a spot in my top five films of the year thus far.

Score: 5 out of 5
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