The Town (2010, U.S.)

I think Ben Affleck is a pretty strong actor who has made some pretty unfortunate choices in his career (mostly involving Armageddon and romantic comedy—he's a much stronger dramatic actor.) His writing/directing skills aren't too shabby either, but to me this script had one major flaw. A huge part of the plot (or so it seems) is that one of the bank robbers kidnaps a teller during the robbery, and they think that she might be able to identify them. So Affleck's character starts flirting with her to find out what she knows. Eventually, they embark on a serious relationship, and there's a lot of tension involving whether she'll find out who he is. Then suddenly, that plot thread is dropped for no apparent reason. It drove me just a little bit crazy.

The acting was very patchy as well. Like I said, I think Affleck is great. Pete Postlewaite, who plays a florist/crime lord-type character, was awesome. Jeremy Renner has driven me crazy from the first time I saw him. I don't know that he's a bad actor per se, but every character he plays (that I've seen) seems to be a cocky, white trash sort. That makes it a bit hard to appreciate him. (This was also my feeling toward Sean Penn until I saw Milk, so maybe I just haven't seen the right performance yet.) The strangest was Blake Lively as Renner's sister, who just did not work for the part. In fact, it took me quite awhile to figure out who she was supposed to be. While everyone else has fairly standard (or even weak) industrial Massachusetts accents, I kept thinking she was supposed to be Eastern/Central European, and I couldn't figure out how this would fit the story—until I realized she was just supposed to sound like a lower-class New Englander. Yikes.

The bank robbery element was pretty cool, as those things go. Watching the dynamics of the gang and the planning that went into a job (especially the very interesting Fenway Park robbery) was interesting, as was learning about life in Charlestown. I had never heard of the "bank robbery capital of the world" before.

The ending was pretty sweet also, though of course I won't give it away. It's unfortunate that such an interesting storyline was dragged down by a cast of mixed skill and a script of mixed effectiveness. It was so close to being good, but all the pieces just didn't fall into place. It could have been a lot stronger. Still, if you judge it strictly as a crime flick and not as the character drama/social commentary it was clearly meant to be, it was pretty darn good.

Rating: 2.5