Printer-friendly version
By Brian Lafferty
September 17, 2010 (San Diego)--The Town opens with Ben Affleck and his crew robbing a bank. The action here is standard but one shot stands out. Rebecca Hall, playing a Bank Manager, is forced to open the safe. She shakes as she tries several times to get the correct combination. She’s under pressure because the cops are on their way and because she has a gun to her head. She finally manages to get it open. This looked promising; Affleck, who also directed and co-wrote, shows a knack for directing suspense despite the otherwise ordinary robbery.
Affleck then finds himself falling for the traumatized Hall. He strikes up a relationship with her (the men were wearing masks and when they dropped her off, she was blindfolded; how she is not able to recognize his voice is beyond me but who cares). Things get complicated because he is planning his last big heist, robbing Fenway Park. It also doesn’t help that he’s pursued by an F.B.I. agent played by Mad Men’s Jon Hamm.
There are some good to great performances, the best of which is by Hall. I liked her the most because she maintains a consistent and credible tone as a shaken-up robbery victim. She never forgets the ordeal. She trembles when interviewed by Hamm a few hours later. When she sees the blood stain on her shirt, it triggers a painful recollection of her co-worker’s face being bashed in with a gun. When she inevitably finds out her new lover is the ringleader, she reacts with equal parts anger, fear, and the feeling of being exploited. I loved seeing her and Affleck together and their relationship is the best part of the movie.
But screenwriters Affleck, Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard squander it all by enveloping the relationship with a tired retread of cliches seen in literally hundreds of other movies. There is no originality, no surprises, no twists. It even devolves into an anticlimactic Third-Act shootout.
One of the bright spots outside the romance is, oddly enough, a car chase sequence at the midway point. It begins with a botched armored truck robbery and segues into a chase through Boston’s narrow alleyways. Just when we think the guys are cornered, they find surprising and bold ways to outsmart the cops. The surroundings make for good claustrophobic action. It is one of the rare car chases this year that even remotely held my interest.
Affleck has the little things down. He can direct suspense, he can elicit great performances, and he helped write a solid romance. I want to see Affleck and Hall together again but in a much better movie.
I will end with some unsolicited advice for screenwriters: if you’re going to write a crime drama, it needs a lot of originality. I wish there were more unique stories, stuff we haven’t seen before, or at least a fresh take or reinvention of the genre and its subgenres. Today the stakes are too high for movies like The Town. These types of movies can no longer settle for the basics.
Recent comments