The Town is Ben Affleck's latest Boston-based crime/action film and much like his last film, Gone Baby Gone, it is adapted from a novel by him (and a few others). Having not read the (Prince of Theives by Chuck Hogan) it is hard to say whether what is wrong with the script is Affleck's fault or if some of the problems are also in the novel. What is clear is that this is a decent film with a really bad, facile script that I've seen a million times.
Part of the problem with the film is that there are just too many parts to the story. Doug (Affleck) is a bank robber who lives in Charlestown, Boston, a neighborhood known for producing some of the most prolific thieves and criminals in the area. He and his best friend Jem (Jeremy Renner) along with a few friends have a successful operation, knocking off banks in the Boston region. At one point when a robbery goes wrong they kidnap bank manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall) only to let her go a few blocks away. Once they discover she lives around the corner from them, Doug moves in to romance her and try to find out what she saw of them during the stick up. Of course the two fall in love and begin dating.
Meanwhile the gang is being pursued by FBI agent Adam Frawley who is hot on their heels, but always comes up just short. He basically has no leads on them, but they make his job easier and easier by continuing to rob places under his nose. There are a few other sorta dumb and unnecessary plot items: Blake Lively plays Jem's sister who has had an on-again-off-again thing with Doug and has a young kid who is maybe Doug's kid, but probably isn't; Pete Postlethwaite is some sort of mob/gang boss who organizes the robberies and then hands them off to Doug; Chris Cooper plays Doug's dad who is in jail also for robbing banks.
Mostly this is just a really messy story with way too much going on. At it's core, it is pretty dull fare that is not all that interesting. Doug is hiding his identity from Claire in a pretty pitiful way - and we watch knowing that at some point the truth will come out and ruin the relationship. There is a thing with the "one last score" that Doug and Jem will run before Doug retires from his criminal life and moves to Florida where he can spend his stolen money alone. Ugh. (Oh - and sorry to ruin it, but the last score is in Fenway Park - possibly the holiest place in Boston. Nothing like being careful. What a dumb mess.)
I think the acting is pretty good throughout the film, despite the silliness of the story. Rebecca Hall is very good and pretty sympathetic. We see her getting bamboozled into her relationship with Doug and know that she's just a victim of her own situation. Affleck is also good, though his character is much more straightforwardly dull.
The film moves pretty well, but is just so recycled that it becomes frustrating. Did Doug never watch movies as a kid and see that the "one last score" is never as easy as it sounds? If he doesn't have that perspective and I do, why do I have to watch him making the same mistakes I've seen hundreds of times before in other movies and books?
Stars: 2.5 of 4
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That is to say, Affleck adapted the novel by Chuck Hogan. he def screwed the pooch this time: everything that made the novel distinctive and interesting is missing from the movie. Gone Baby Gone may have failed to capture the dynamic between the two main private investigators (the whole linchpin for that series) but it caught the nuances of the mystery they were tackling. Affleck said he didn't want to make a standard heist movie but then ditched all the books good elements. At the very beginning, they rob a bank with guns blazing and then go crashing through the neighborhood, endangering the lives of every citizen in a 20 block radius. In contrast, the ENTIRE point of the heist opening the book is that our hero (Affleck) is smart and cautious and arranges the heist so that no guns are blazing and no one should be harmed and they get away easily. His main partner is a lunatic who beats up a teller for no reason, creating the main dynamic of the book: Affleck's professional smarts and caution and his best bud's lunacy that endangers them. Since in the movie Affleck is a gun-toting reckless fool, there's nowhere for the movie to go. Plus, he and the bank manager fall in love in about one and a half scenes, the subplot of Jon Hamm falling for her too is lost, etc etc. Technically fine but dumbed down in every way.
ReplyDeleteRight. This gang was nothing if not fast and loose with the details. Also - apparently cops in Charlestown don't have radios to hear that there has been a bank robbery and they should be on the lookout for a car full of dudes in masks. Good idea.
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