The Town

UK Release Date. 24 September 2010
Certification. 15

Running Time. 2 hours 5 mins

Director. Ben Affleck
Cast. Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Blake Lively, Pete Postlethwaite, Jeremy Renner. 
Rating. 72%

Review.

In 1995, The Boston Globe reported that Charlestown was a "community to which more armored car robbers are traced than any other in the country."

One such armed robbery crew led by Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) is the main focus of The Town and there's a degree of comfort in seeing Ben Affleck star in and direct a Boston-based crime drama. After all, Ben Affleck grew up in Cambridge, only a few miles from Charlestown.

Based on Chuck Nogan's 2004 novel Prince of Thieves, The Town was released in 2010 hot on the heels of Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, Martin Scorsese's The Departed and Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone, at a time when Massachusetts was the preferred location for filmmakers eager to offer audiences uncompromising crime dramas. 

The authenticity of the thick, guttural Boston brogue from the main protagonists is on the button. Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner are highly believable as brothers from another mother united by their upbringing in the close-knit Charlestown community. The natural chemistry of the pair might not be quite on the par of Chuckie Sullivan and Will Hunting from Good Will Hunting, but it's not far off. Rebecca Hall shines as the fragile, Claire and Blake Lively surprisingly embraces and elevates her bit-part, one-time girlfriend character, Krista Coughlin. Only Pete Postlethwaite flounders as the local kingpin, Fergie The Florist, with a ridiculous Oirish accent.

The robbery sequences are impressive and well choreographed, and lead into claustrophobic chase sequences through the narrow colonial streets of Bunker Hill. However, the ease at which the characters suddenly upgrade to semi-automatic weapons in an attempt to rob Fenway Stadium was, in my opinion, out of character.

The problem for The Town is the weight of the genre's back catalogue. There's a nod to Michael Mann's Heat in a concluding entrapment scene, but The Town is far more than another run of the mill heist film. Instead, The Town questions belonging, loyalty and fate. Ultimately, does the child inevitably pay for the sins of the parents?