As he plans his next job, a longtime thief tries to balance his feelings for a bank manager connected to one of his earlier heists, as well as the FBI agent looking to bring him and his crew down.
The Town wants badly to be something that it never becomes. Somewhere in this film lies a two and a half to three hour crime drama masterpiece, however we're dealt a two hour action flick that fails to deliver the emotional punch it should. There is an extended cut on dvd that runs thirty minutes longer, which tells me the re-emerging Ben Affleck tried to give us more, but just couldn't put it all together.
The Town is based on the Chuck Hogan novel Prince of Thieves and I'm guessing that once again the novel trumps the film. However, the film is definitely worth the time of anyone who enjoys a good heist or action flick. The Town just never becomes great, which is a disappointment given everything it has going for it. Ben Affleck returns to the director's chair following his outstanding and somewhat surprising debut Gone Baby Gone, but this time steps in front of the camera as Doug Macray; a man we're told was simply born into a life of crime in the bank robbery capitol of America. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) is wonderful as Doug's best friend & crew mate and Jon Hamm is very convincing as FBI Agent Frawley who is dead set on stopping them. The films starts off with an exciting heist where we are introduced to the crew and love interest Claire played by Rebecca Hall (Vicky Christina Barcelona). They end up taking Claire hostage (I didn't catch why...) and then immediately let her go. Worried she might have seen too much Doug agrees to follow up on her to make sure she doesn't rat them out, but falls in love with her instead. The story rolls on as the crew plans more heists, Doug pursues Claire and Agent Frawley zeroes in on them. We meet Doug's jailed father, we're introduced to his drug addicted past love Krista and we're given a quick explanation of how he ended up following his fathers footsteps.
While The Town is well written, acted and paced the ultimate problem is that I never got to the point where I cared about what happened to any of the characters. By the time the climax is reached I was just talking aloud and predicting everything that would happen next. The sequences unfold in a formulaic manner, and the tension and drama that should have been there was somehow lost in the proceedings. The information we're given to add back story, depth and character all seemed tacked on and routine, leaving me with no one to root for. In the end, I didn't care what happened to Doug or Claire and already knew what would happen to everyone else. However, I still enjoyed myself. In no way is it a bad film; it's just a disappointing one. The Town is a slight step back for Affleck as a director but is still a good film with excellent production, exciting action and dead on performances that are well worth anyone's time.
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