THE TOWN
3 out of 5 stars

i was a bit disappointed with this one, since i read such rave reviews about how great this movie was and how awesome ben affleck did as his directorial debut. unfortunately, i had some gripes with this just becuz i wanted to see more of the culture of charlestown and why this little neighborhood produces so many bank robbers/criminals in all of americaland… :/



if you’ve seen the departed and boondock saints, you’ll know that boston is the city that breeds blue-collared criminals and the irish mob rules all. (in this case, it’s a guy called the florist) with neighborhoods like dorchester and charlestown (where this is set), you wonder how an ex-pro hockey player becomes a career bank robber overnight. doug mcray (affleck) is just that guy. he loses himself to pain killers, and pretty soon, he’s in over his head… it doesn’t help his situation when all his friends/crew members are bank robbers too. there’s jem legally known as james coughlin (jeremy renner who’s a superstar in this one!), his drug mule single mother sister (“there’s nothing serena about her” blake lively), gloans AKA the getaway driver, and dez the technician who knows everything about bank security. the movie starts out with a robbery, which leads us to claire the bank manager (american accented rebecca hall), who is then kidnapped by this crew as a potential “hostage”. as it turns out, claire lives in charlestown, and the crew starts to panick, which then doug takes charge of the problem. (if there really is one) of course, this action/thriller wouldn’t be great without a good antagonist, in the form of jon hamm (HOT!), who plays special agent adam frawley. frawley is a no-nonsense type of agent, who won’t stop until he puts these charlestown homeboys in prison, which adds fun even to the very end of the movie…


OK… my gripes: 1) the plot to me was very superficial. affleck could have done a better job at fleshing out some of the characters and even providing some more cultural insights to why charlestown is the way it is. the only character that was fully developed was doug. so, what about the others? the script is well written but affleck shouldn’t have played the main protagonist. (sorry… but you’re not really a good actor…) 2) the entire movie is really choppy, as if someone took bits and pieces of a longer movie and pasted it together without any seams. i did read on IMDB.com that the original cut was over 4 hours long, so maybe that’s why? 3) jon hamm is a great actor, but one can’t help but think of mad men whenever we see him. it’s like “but you’re DON DRAPER!” despite all my gripes, i do have to hand it to jeremy renner for an awesome job as a the hot-headed jem. he’s SPECTACULAR in this, and really defines true method-acting by engrossing himself in the role. (every scene with him is great!) affleck, you may want to take some acting cues from j.renner next time… :/