Rebecca Hall – Mosher'sUnimaginativelyEntitledBlog

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.

The Town

“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 claustrophobicÂ 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.