Movie Review -- "The Town"

All you need to rob a bank are Halloween masks, AK-47’s and nothing to lose — so say the countless sting movies that have schooled us in theft over the years. But you need much more than this to make a good heist film.

Director Ben Affleck is smart enough to avoid this rookie mistake, and even overcompensates. Fusing nuanced character study with raw adrenaline, his newest crime drama hijacks viewers’ undivided attention without factoring in their much-divided focus.

While “The Town” boasts an array of superb performances and champions Affleck’s informed action sensibilities, faulty storytelling compromises these impressive tricks of the trade.

Doug McRay (Ben Affleck) is a bank robber from a town he’s not proud of, save for his hotheaded partner Jimmy (Jeremy Renner). After falling in love with a former hostage, Claire (Rebecca Hall), Doug decides to take on one last high-risk job before he flees his hometown for good.

The film’s overarching flaw is also its greatest asset: Doug is a complex guy. His life has been stained with an absent mother, thwarted ambitions and run-ins with the FBI.

As the film fails to reconcile these struggles, the audience loses sight of why this story is being told, and which fragment of Doug is being evinced at any one moment. Thus, however moving or thrilling a scene may be, there is still a distance that stands in the way.

Despite this narrative roadblock, stellar performances from Affleck, Hall and Renner tap the script’s wellspring of poignancy. Affleck’s internally ravaged Doug clashes perfectly with Renner’s bastion of Irish colloquialisms and Bostonian machismo. And without Hall, Doug and Claire’s relationship would be a time-wasting digression from utterly badass heist sequences.
Imagine “The Departed” meets “Heat” meets “Good Will Hunting.” From the odd mixture comes a mildly affecting film that romps through its runtime with guns blazing and a burlap bag that’s much too light with met expectations.