"the town"

ben affleck's second directorial effort is based on the novel "prince of thieves" by chuck hogan.  it was originally set to be directed by adrian lyne ("fatal attraction") but there was a falling out with the studio.  affleck was asked to step in due to the success of his first crime flick, "gone, baby gone".

the first cut of the film was 4 hours long but the studio made affleck cut it to no longer than 2hrs 10min.  he settled at 2hrs 8min although the film does not feel as though it loses anything in the cuts.  sometimes a film ends up feeling "choppy" but this has a fluid flow throughout the film.  the directors cut is said to much more close to the actual novel, however.  not having read the novel...i couldn't tell you.

the basic story goes affleck, renner and the rest of his gang are professional bank robbers.  during their last robbery renner kills the assistant bank manager and kidnaps the bank manager (rebecca hall).  renner let's her go, however , the team discovers that she can identify renner by his tattoo on the back of his neck.  renner wants to kill her, but affleck decides that he will watch her to make sure they are ok.  during this he falls for her and instigates a relationship.  affleck's character wants out of the bank robbery business but renner and the others want him to stay.

affleck's direction here is solid as is his acting but the acting kudos go to jeremy renner (nominated for an oscar).
  

jeremy renner

renner not only is completely convincing as this character he nails the working class boston accent which is hard to do without just sounding like your saying cah instead of car.  rounding out the cast is jon hamm ("mad men") doing his best tough-guy FBI agent, rebecca hall (probably best known as christian bale's wife in "the prestige"), blake lively ("gossip girl", "green lantern" and even though i detest her i have to say she did a pretty decent job in this movie) and one of the last performances by pete postlethwaite.  affleck seems to be pretty good at getting the performance that he wants from his cast.  he told lively to hang out with local charlestown residents to get her character down and renner buddied up with convicted bank robbers for his and it worked.  

john hamm

rebecca hall

blake lively

pete postlethwaite

in my opinion, this is a very well-crafted heist flick.  there were moments of real suspense for me as i watched renner's character almost get recognized by the only witness.  i actually had to pause it for a moment to postpone the inevitable...which didn't come until later...


affleck has been tapped to adapt stephen king's "the stand".  from this film it seems that he is very good at adapting from novels and i am very much interested to see what he does with one of my favourite novels.


overall, "the town" is a classic heist/love story with an open ending that could go either way...good or bad...happy or sad...


bottomline:
3.5 outta 5