Starring: Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner and Blake Lively
Directed By: Ben Affleck
Screenplay By: Peter Craig, Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard
Based on the novel: “Prince of Thieves” by Chuck Hogan
Produced By: Graham King and Basil Iwanyk
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Rating: R, for strong violence, pervasive language, some sexuality and drug use.
Running Time: Approximately 123 minutes
Website: thetownmovie.warnerbros.com
Budget: $37 Million
Genre: Crime/Drama
Release Date: September 17, 2010
Despite being saddled with a terrible (and generic) title, actor-turned-filmmaker Ben Affleck’s follow-up to his promising 2007 directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, is a well-crafted heist film that may fly in the face of logic, but makes excellent use of its Boston setting.
In this adaptation of the Chuck Hogan novel “Prince of Thieves,” which Affleck is credited with adapting alongside Peter Craig and Aaron Stafford (the latter of whom also adapted Gone Baby Gone), Affleck stars as Doug MacRay, a former NHL-draftee and recovering addict who’s as genial as any guy from the hard scrapple streets of South Boston ever could be. So genial, in fact, that when he and his 3-man crew pull off an electrifying bank heist in the film’s opening, he’s Zen enough to take a moment to help calm the nerves of Claire (Rebecca Hall), the attractive branch manager they force to open the vault and later kidnap.
The heist is business as usual for Doug and his longtime crew that includes childhood friend James “Jem” Coughlin (Jeremy Renner), a live wire with a hair-trigger temper who isn’t immune to bullying his victims or using emotional blackmail to get the job done. Of the mind that Claire may pose a risk to them and their operation, Jem calls for her head. Doug, on the other hand, wants to pick her brain and see what she knows and how much she’s shared with the authorities, so he befriends her, and in one of the film‘s less surprising developments, falls for her – as she does him.
As cliché a plot device as it is to have the victim fall for the criminal, Affleck and Hall make their budding romance believable despite the preposterousness of it. You actually find yourself rooting for them to be together even when “Mad Men” star Jon Hamm’s dogmatic FBI Special Agent Frawley is chomping at the bit to bring Doug, Jem and their crew to justice.
Similar to his achievement with Gone Baby Gone, Affleck has a real affinity for capturing the blue collar, working class milieu of Boston, in this case the Charlestown district, which we’re informed from the offset is a breeding ground and home base for many a crook in the greater-Boston area.
Affleck, a Boston native, is as good here as he’s been in anything prior, nicely underselling the role in favor of letting his co-stars shine. He coaxes some very good work from the versatile Hall, Oscar-nominee Pete Postlethwaite as a florist and neighborhood don who manhandles Doug and Jem and their crew into fleecing Fenway Park out of a considerable amount of money, “Gossip Girls’” Blake Lively as Doug’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, Chris Cooper in the small role of Doug’s imprisoned father, Hamm as the agent on the case, and Titus Welliver as his by-the-books partner.
However it’s Renner, Oscar-nominated last year for best actor for his breakout performance in The Hurt Locker, who walks off with The Town and will hopefully be remembered come awards season in the supporting actor race.
Grade: 3 stars (out of 5)
