Movie Review: The Town Written Directed and Starring Ben Affleck

The Town is about four childhood friends that grew up together in Charlestown a neighborhood in Boston. This group of friends were in the family business of robbing banks and armored-cars.

Charlestown is reported to have produced the most bank and armored-car robbers than anywhere else in the country.

The Town directed by Ben Affleck who also stars as the crews leader plays Doug MacRay. The film opens with a bank robbery with Ben Affleck (Doug MacRay) and his co-star Jeremy Renner (Jem) and two other friends robbing a local bank. The bank Manager Claire played by Rebecca Hall is taken hostage as a result of some unplanned mishaps during the robbery. Claire is later released unharmed.

Claire and Doug become the romantic centerpiece of The Town very similar to Matt Damon and Mini Rogers in Good Will Hunting. This writing formula has been very effective by Affleck winning him an academy award for his screenplay for Good Will Hunting. The similarities of the two films are there although the story is different. Doug in The Town like Will in Good Will Hunting were both abandoned by their parents. Will an orphan and Doug left by his mother as a child and his father serving 3 life sentences in prison. Chris Cooper plays Affleck's father.

Affleck builds on the relationship between Doug and Claire while battling his roots of Charlestown and the neighborhood code of "you can't leave" as Jem explains. Jem would prefer to take out Claire rather than risk her snitching on Doug, Jem and his other two friends.

Doug sees things a different way and vows to his crew to take care of Claire. Doug seeks out Claire to be sure she is not cooperating with the feds. His first mission is to be certain Claire can't identify his crew as the bank robbers. Doug is drawn to Claires purity and wants her to stay alive. Jem on the other hand will do everything he needs to to prevent a life in prison.
Jem who had a 9 year stretch in prison for murder which is explained in the film what he did to end up there makes Jem think that Doug owes him forever.

The film flows at a fast pace with a wonderful supporting cast led by Jon Hamm from Mad Man as the F.B.I. agent Frawley who is leading the investigation to take down Affleck's crew. Agent Frawley (Jon Hamm) recognizes immediately the just how much of a genius Doug's is  in his field of bank and armored-car robberies. This draws another similarity to Damon's character in Good Will Hunting.

Doug reaches a point in his life that he wants out of the game but will have to leave his friends behind, Jem does not like this at all. After an altercation amongst the friends they agree to do one more heist that turns out to be the climax of the film.

Like Damon's character Will, Doug will be faced with walking away from all he knows in order to start a new life instead of winding up dead or in jail for the rest of his life like his father. Doug like Will also wants to land the girl in the end.

The Town was more than enjoyable and Jeremy Rennar nailed it with his character Jem. Rennar plays these intense rolls extremely well which he has proved earlier in last years acaf=demy award winning film The Hurt Locker.

I don't think The Town will win best Screen play at the Oscars like Good Will Hunting but I do think The Town will receive nominations and do well at the box office.

By Peter Tosto