I so badly wanted to love this movie, but all I did was like it. I was also kind of wary because I know the history Ben Affleck has with movies (especially with his amount of razzie nominations) and I wasn't even aware of the existence of Gone Baby Gone until this movie was released. The Town definitely shows that what Ben Affleck doesn't know about acting, he certainly knows about directing, and this proves that Ben is a director to be reckoned with. Despite odd and slow pacing and a somewhat awkward romantic storyline, this is still a very interesting and compelling crime heist movie.
The Town tells the story of Doug MacRay (Affleck) and James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner), two lifelong friends who also happen to be bank robbers. They rob a bank and take one hostage, a bank manager named Claire (Rebecca Hall). Since she is unaware of his identity, Doug and Claire get into a relationship that screws up his bank robbing and his relationship with Coughlin. There's also some stuff about the interplay between the group and one final bank robbery at the end. The story is very compelling and at times very entertaining, but some stuff drags a bit and the pacing indeed was rather odd. However, that's only one problem with the movie. The only other problem with the movie was that the romantic storyline was kind of awkward at times and Affleck and Hall didn't really have much chemistry as a couple. However, the two problems were drowned out by the good stuff.
The film is perfectly tense, intelligently written, and also had great action scenes (though they were few and far between), but where the movie truly rises is on the shoulders of its perfectly capable actors. Affleck's performance was pretty good, and so was Jeremy Renner was also good too. The scene-stealing turn was definitely from Blake Lively though as Jeremy Renner's sister, and I am actually excited to see her branch out into other stuff.
If there were more than five slots for Best Supporting Actor, then Jeremy Renner would definitely deserve to be in there. However, since there are only five, I think that Andrew Garfield should have been nominated in Renner's place though, because he deserved it more. The other actors, like Rebecca Hall and the late Pete Postlethwaite were pretty good as well, ut nothing really spectacular. All in all, the movie had a great cast and they all were simply spectacular in their performances.
The action set pieces were very slick and almost had a bit of a Bond-ish feeling to them, despite The Town and James Bond having entirely different story structure. The characterization was also wonderful and showed the nuances and personalities of the characters and not just making them caricatures. The movie on a whole really wasn't that entertaining, and some parts were a bit hard to follow because the video I had acquired was not of great quality and the sound was kind of muddled. However, that's not the movie's fault, so i definitely won't be judging it for the poor sound.
All in all, The Town has earned my solid recommendation to anyone. Ben Affleck is certainly a great director, definitely better at it than he is at acting. Like the critics consensus says, the movie is tense, smartly written and wonderfully cast. I have never really been much of a fan of the heist genre, but this is definitely a fine entry into said genre and fans of heist movies will certainly like this. All in all, probably one of the best movies of last year, and a high recommendation, even though I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.
