"The Town" (2010): Movie Review

Let's be clear, Ben Affleck's "The Town", is a highly professional game of cops and robbers. Assembling a fired up cast, including John Hamm (Mad Men), Jeremy Renner ("Hurt Locker") and Rebecca Hall ("The Prestige", "Vicky Cristina Barcelona") amongst his own refined self, Affleck has definitely come into his own as a director.

One can just imagine Affleck reading Chuck Hogan's novel Prince of Thieves, spinning scenes into a definitive Boston Crime Drama. All the while, Affleck can't help but subconsciously pick up cues from Michael Mann's "Heat" and Kathryn Bigelow's "Point Break". That may be one of the problems with "The Town", as Affleck seems to have an adolescent enthusiasm in seeing himself in a movie about cops and robbers.

Filmmaking may in essence be playing pretend like kids do, yet the better films are encoded in an authenticity. To paraphrase John Hamm's Agent Frawley in "The Town", the filmmakers have to be the "not-f**king-around crew."

Affleck's character in "The Town", Doug MacRay, typifies his psychological profile as an actor. A hopeless bad boy, or rather attitude afflicted local boy with a sensitive side, always on the verge of fixing himself. Think of his roles in, "Good Will Hunting", "Armageddon", "Smoking Aces", even "Dogma"; all essentially the same psychological profile. Affleck has provided a variety of roles, notably as George Reeves in "Hollywoodland", yet his typical character seems to work best for him.

This isn't a completely unsuccessful recipe for actors, if you think of Clint Eastwood's success as playing the same guy in every film. Of course, Clint Eastwood, who also directs himself, is iconic as a badass and Ben Affleck comes close at best.

Affleck suffers from a dilemma of duality, which is something of a synecdoche for his film "The Town." A synecdoche being a part that represents the whole, or a piece that mirrors the larger thing it is part of. "The Town" is a film that relies heavily on two interconnected story lines, but they fall short on each other.

There is the crime drama plot centered on the robberies and there is the love story between Affleck and his recuperating kidnap victim/FBI bait, played by Rebecca Hall. There is an essential duality to their relationship and the plot cannot exist without it, but both sides of the plot are ridden with clichés and horribly underdeveloped. Hence, Affleck's duality as a typecast character, Mr. Sensitive Bad boy is essential to his acting career, yet also ridden with clichés and horribly underdeveloped.

That aside, "The Town" is the perfect game for Ben Affleck, its soft-core Hollywood action set in Boston, with a mild touch of dramatics. Luckily he is a skilled director and, as he achieved with Amy Ryan in "Gone Baby Gone", brings a talented cast alive like a craftsman. Jon Hamm is, not surprisingly, masterful as a troubled man-in-charge, playing FBI agent Adam Frawley.

Blake Lively (Gossip Girl) steals the show as a doped up clingy chick to Affleck's MacRay. Jeremy Renner is also in danger of being typecast as the more violent self-destructive type, but a blast to watch as Coughlin. Chris Cooper's ("Adaptation", "Syriana") small part as MacRay's incarcerated dad is, as one would expect, thoroughly absorbed in a role that enhances the film tenfold.

Every performance in the film is spot on, making a dutiful insult to the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. Hogan's book Prince of Thieves has already irked Charlestown residents, and the film isn't doing much for its reputation.

So, Affleck has avoided a sophomoric pitfall as a director of feature films, even if he has emblazoned his own typecast. The cast also rallies behind Affleck making this a film worth seeing, yet there are still two elements that enhance "The Town" which stand all their own.

When Cinematographer Robert Elswit, ASC and Editor Dylan Tichenor collaborated to create Paul Thomas Anderson's modern masterpiece, "There Will Be Blood", cinema reached new heights. Elswit and Tichenor had also collaborated on Anderson's "Magnolia", "Boogie Nights" and "Hard Eight". While Ben Affleck is no Paul Thomas Anderson, the director is in the company of masters in collaborating with Tichenor and Elswit on "The Town".

It shows in the film too, as Dylan Tichenor handles Elswit's cinematography like Red Sock's catcher Lou Criger handled Cy Young's pitches on May 5 1904; a perfect game. At a personal level, Elswit and Tichenor are reason enough to see "The Town". There is also seeing John Hamm finally in action on the big screen, along with the always immaculate Pete Postlethwaite as the Charlestown ringleader posing as a neighborhood Florist.

"The Town" is up against some tough competition as inclusion in the growing Boston Crime Drama subgenre. This includes films like Clint "badass" Eastwood's "Mystic River" and Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" (which starred Affleck's arch nemesis Matt Damon), both favored at the Oscars. There is also the more cultish reception of films like Stephen Hopkins's "Blown Away" and Troy Duffy's "The Boondock Saints".

While "The Town" probably won't be greeted with Oscar's red carpet, nor will it garner a cult following, it certainly puts Affleck as the leading director of Boston Crime Dramas. "The Town" and "Gone, Baby Gone" are both representative of Boston neighborhoods, yet Affleck needs to step up his character development in terms of locale. Building Boston as a cinematic character requires more than simply using thick accents, referencing the Red Socks and filming on location.

Perhaps there is something more at stake here; permit me the fantasy of speculating Ben Affleck's triumphant return to TV after his failed "Push, Nevada" series on ABC. Picture it: an HBO original series produced by Martin Scorsese, directed by Affleck, co-written by Brian Helgeland (screenwriter for "Mystic River", "The Bourne Supremacy" and "Man on Fire") and Dennis Lehane (author of Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, and Shutter Island. It will star John Hamm and Jennifer Garner (Affleck's wife and star of "Alias") as lead detectives up against a rash of Boston's toughest criminal minds. Oh, the possibilities! Until then, "The Town" will have to do.