Movie Review: 'The Town'

Lately, not much has pissed me off more than hearing people rag on Ben Affleck. For some reason, he seems like the guy in Hollywood to make fun of. I guess being the star of GIGLI gives people verbal abuse rights for the rest of eternity, but if Affleck’s second directorial effort isn’t enough to stop the haters, then I don’t know what is. It has been my experience that people usually have to prove themselves in threes. So here it is: he co-wrote and starred in GOOD WILL HUNTING, directed the critically acclaimed GONE BABY GONE, and now directed THE TOWN, which I can safely say is one of the best movies of the year so far.

In THE TOWN, Affleck plays the lead role of Doug. In the first scene of the film, Doug and his crew of bank robbers (including Jeremy Renner playing his violent best friend Jem) hold up a bank, take the bank manger Claire (Rebecca Hall) hostage, and leave her blindfolded on the beach, unharmed. Scared that she might be able to identify them, Affleck volunteers to take care of the situation, pretending to casually meet her by chance to ensure that she really didn’t see anything. They start going on a few dates, and lo and behold, Doug finds himself falling for her.

So much of my interest during the film was driven by needing to see how each situation would play out: how/when will Claire find out? How will she react? Are they all going to get caught? Will Jem try and take the situation into his own hands? Jeremy Renner played the character of Jem with such a quiet danger, that anytime he was on screen, even when doing the most nonthreatening of things, I couldn’t help but notice that he was the exact kind of guy that were I walking alone and saw him, I would pretend to talk on my cell phone to ensure that we had no reason to come into contact. He keeps you on your toes the whole time, not letting you take any peaceful moment of the movie for granted. Likewise, Affleck (as a director) knew exactly how to mess with your emotions and keep you on the edge. Most notable, to me, is the opening bank robbery scene. Going from the point of view of watching the heist play out on the security camera in absolute silence, to BAM, bringing us right back into the action with crippling loud noise and intensity, once the scene was over and I saw the title slowly fade onto the screen I realized that I had been holding my breath. Then I just thought to myself: That was only the first five minutes. Here we go!

Rating: A