I’m starting to value my weekends now that I have a job, so it’s good to make the most of them. Up early doors to look after the U-14’s football (we won 1-7!) and then straight to the cinema to catch a film. Good days.
“We gotta do somethin’. I can’t tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it after we’re done, and we’re gonna hurt some people.”
Plot-in-a-nutshell: Bank robbery goes right, but an over-keen thief takes a hostage… who one of the other robbers falls for.
Ben Affleck‘s been busy on this one. Lead role, co-writer and director. Although he didn’t come up with the story – it’s based on a novel. The Town is a gritty crime drama seen mainly from the viewpoint of one of the conspirators with the occasional glimpse from the FBI.
Doug MacRay (Affleck) is a high school failure from Charlestown, a suburb which apparently bred more bank robbers than any other town in the world. Or America. Which is the same thing to Americans. He trialled for pro hockey, flopped and ended up following his father into a life of crime under local gang lord “The Florist” (Pete Postlethwaite).
Along with three friends, they’ve been taking apart banks ans armoured cars without hurting anyone. MacRay’s a nice guy. Aside from stealing from people and waving guns in their faces.
However, on one job co-thief Jim (Jeremy Renner) takes a bank clerk (Rebecca Hall) hostage. Released unharmed, he decides she needs “watched” to ensure she doesn’t cause any problems. MacRay takes control of this to make sure this doesn’t turn into a case of clearing up a loose end. After all, he’s the nice guy here.
Of course, he ends up doing a little more than just watching her – but then, he is such a nice guy.
Yes, there’s the theme of MacRay always trying to do the right thing. Which seems at odds with someone who robs banks armed with a semi-auto, but who says Hollywood has to make sense? After all they keep throwing money at talentless tossers like Ricky Gervais.
Anyway, barring this little issue the characters are pretty good and the film nicely paced. There’s plenty of action and the robbery, chase and other action sequences are very well filmed. I particularly liked the car chase after the armoured car robbery. It’s nice and claustrophobic with the cars trying to get round narrow streets, clipping corners.
The most interesting character, though, is hair-triggered Jim. Unpredictable, violent and you constantly feel like something is going to happen when he’s on-screen. Renner pulls the part off very well indeed. In comparison, Affleck is… well, he’s Affleck. Good enough, and I’m sure the ladies will swoon over him but it’s very much a by-the-numbers effort for him.
There’s a decent story here, a good bit of crossover of various elements, introduction of back-story about MacRay and very well done action sequences. It’s not the amazing piec of cinema that a lot of reviews are making it out to be, but it’s certainly a good bit of entertainment.
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but the question you didn’t answer is – if you’ve seen the trailer is it still worth watching the film??? we saw the trailer the other week and i was left feeling that it looked like a good film but that the trailer had given so much away that it wasn’t worth watching it for real.
Good question and I’d say “yes”. There are no real surprises plotwise, but the action sequences are excellent as is the final confrontation.
In fairness, how many films have a good twist in the plot these days – whether you’ve seen the trailer or not?
i don’t bother watching many films! maybe that’s part of the problem 🙂
the last things i saw at the cinema were avatar and inception (and the other guys i suppose!) and i didn’t know much (well, anything really) about them before i saw them. i guess i like teaser trailers, i don’t like knowing too much about a film before i see it – not because i like twists (although i do!) but because i resent paying to see a film when i know 90% of what happened because i saw the trailer.
i make sure i avoid spoilers for tv shows too. except Dexter for some reason, i know everything that happens in the season currently being broadcast in the UK 🙂
I used to avoid trailers like the plague, but I see so many films on my own now that doing so is unavoidable. If I go to see a popular film, I have to get in early enough to get a good seat that I *have* to sit through the trailers.
It’s true that some show you far too much, and have all the good bits in (the awful Bounty Hunter for example) but I’m getting used to them. Plus, my memory sucks so I’ve often forgotten half of what happens in the trailer by the time I see the film.
As for Dexter, I’m watching the series currently broadcasting in the US…
i’m a fan of dexter on fb so i keep hearing things on there, which is why i gave up and found out the whole of this season. i should just stop being a fan of it but sometimes i hear things that D would want to know (and he cares more about Dexter than i do).
my cinema has allocated seats – back to the very-old days!!!!!!!!!!
I hate allocated seats, but that’s mainly as I get them in Thailand when the cinema holds a couple of hundred at capacity, yet I rarely see more than 30 people there. Vietnam was the same.