The Town

"The Town"
Starring: Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jeremy Renner, John Hamm, Titus Welliver, Chris Cooper, Pete Postlethwaite, Blake Lively
Directed by: Ben Affleck
123 minutes

The layout of Ben Affleck's new film "The Town," is quite simple. It's a genre film, more specifically, a "one last job," film, where the final heist of the protagonist will be his last before he settles down and leaves his life of crime. The problem with this familiar trope is that the guidelines and dynamics of the narrative are laid out in front of us. For the film to work, the stakes must be high, and we better care about the characters.

It's a gritty and violent cops- and- robbers story set in Charlestown, the bank robbery capital of America. The most notorious crew is led by Doug MacRay, played by Affleck, who has learned the criminal lifestyle from his imprisoned father Stephen, played by Chris Cooper. Doug's partner and lifelong friend is Jem, played by Jeremy Renner, who some will recognize from last year's best picture winner "The Hurt Locker." Jem plays the crew's loose cannon, a hothead who tries to justify any violence he partakes in. Doug, Jem, and the two other guys rounding out the crew get their jobs from a florist played by Pete Postlethwaite, a veteran of the business who worked with Doug's father. It's a town where crime is passed down through the generations, and where no other profession is even thought of.

It's all very standard and evident how things will unravel. During the opening of the film, the guys target a bank, a guard signals an alarm, and an innocent employee is taken hostage just for caution. The employee is Claire, played by the beautiful Rebecca Hall. She ends being let go, but is taken in for questioning by Special Agent Adam Frawley of the FBI, Frawley is played by "Mad Men's," Jon Hamm. Doug and Jem debate whether she could identity them, so Doug follows her around and the two end up forming a relationship.

The rest of the film consists of the cat and mouse games between the FBI and Doug's crew, and the non existent chemistry between Doug and Claire that were supposed to care about. Claire is intrigued by Doug for reasons that go unknown. We get a few scenes of them talking, some give the hint where we may learn more about their characters, but the moment never comes. Affleck is more interested in ensuring the pace of the film and providing the false impression of character depth with these scenes. Claire is always charming and is an obvious catch for a guy like Doug, who has little depth outside of questions he has about his mother's past fate.

While the screenplay by Peter Craig and Ben Affleck isn't as strong as the script for Affleck's directorial effort "Gone Baby Gone," this film is better directed. Action scenes sizzle with intensity and danger as Affleck knows how to stage and frame set pieces, perhaps taking a page out of Michael Mann's "Heat," with the multiple shootout scenes. The acting is also pretty good, while everyone does their part, it's mainly Renner that sticks out, his fiery nature and tone is unsettling, making him unpredictable in any scene. Jon Hamm isn't given much beyond his "by the book" character arc, still, Hamm does just fine. There is also Blake Lively, who plays Jem's sister Krista. Lifelong drug addict and past interest to Doug, it's Krista who is like a younger version of Amy Ryan's character from "Gone Baby Gone," there is little for her to do here as she clings to Doug as the gettin' gets late.

"The Town," succeeds and gently succumbs to its familiar slate of narrative devices. It's obvious that Affleck wants to tell a familiar story with an assured hand, but as the film goes on, one wonders if the script will take any chances because we're hoping we haven't pinpointed the fate of the characters so early. It will be interesting to see where Affleck goes from here, he's comfortable with filming in settings comparable to Scorsese in the 70's, but Scorsese's projects were much more dynamic than Affleck's first two efforts.

The characters that make up "The Town," are worthy of our attention, but certainly not for more than two hours. There are far worse things out there right now at the box office, and if you're in the mood for a decent little action/thriller, the "Town," will hold you over until the heavy hitters of the fall and winter film season arrive.

Grade: 3/5