Here is my review for class. I had trouble posting it for some reason so please excuse any formatting issues.
Essay 2
The Town: A Movie Review
The Basics
“The Town” is a solidly entertaining movie with a little something for everyone – romance, intrigue, suspense, but most of all action scenes and car chases. “The Town” is based on the 2004 novel, “Prince of Thieves” by Chuck Hogan and was co-written, directed and also starring Ben Affleck. The movie is getting buzz as Affleck’s comeback as filmmaker after a run of unmemorable performances and a few flops.
The Story
“There are over 300 bank robberies in Boston every year. And a one square mile neighborhood in Boston, called Charlestown, has produced more bank and armored car robbers than anywhere in the U.S.” http://thetownmovie.warnerbros.com
That quote sums up the basic premise of the movie. Charlestown, a rough, working class neighborhood north of Boston, characterizes the gang of bank robbers led by Doug MacRay (played by Affleck) and the environment they live in. From the beginning of the movie you are thrown in with this masked band of ‘thieves’ as they rob a bank. This is obviously not their first bank robbery - they are serious about their work, quickly and confidently taking over a bank and ruthlessly demanding that someone open the safe. It is that scene we are introduced to Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall), the bank manager who opens the safe and is subsequently kidnapped by the gang. They let her go as soon as they are safely away but keep her driver’s license. Things get complicated when one of the gang members, the violent Jem (Jeremy Renner) wants to harm Claire to assure that she keeps quiet about anything she may have seen or heard when they held her captive. Doug steps up to handle it and ends up befriending Claire. Let me just say things progress from there, so I don’t give much of the movie away.
The Performances
Truthfully there are no standout performances in “The Town”. All the actors did a good job with their roles. The highlighting of the town and its roughness was used to sketch out all the characters of the gang. Ben Affleck was comfortable as the relatively sensitive Doug MacRay, – maybe too comfortable. It almost seemed as if he was playing himself.
Rebecca Hall was lovely as Claire, the fish out of water bank manager. She is not from Charlestown so she knows little about the neighborhood. This makes her seem fragile and naïve. She plays Claire lightly and poignantly but it is a quiet role and performance.
Jeremy Renner (previously in “The Hurt Locker” and “Dahmer”) played Jem, the most hot headed of the gang members. He was interesting to watch but was only used as a sinister foil to Doug. We only get brief bits of him in throughout movie.
All and all I would say the action scenes, the robberies and car chases were the stars of the film. The film comes alive during those scenes.
Yay or Nay
I would say ‘Yay’. “The Town” blends fast paced action scenes and heists, with an uncomfortable romance and the story of a troubled man coming to realize he wants more out of life than robbery. I can’t think of anything major that I didn’t like about the movie other that the Boston accents were hard to understand at times. I suppose I would have liked a more in-depth look at the ‘town’ and also the characters and how the town influenced them while they were growing up; this was only hinted at in the movie.
Overall, I liked “The Town” and found it satisfying. It is a good movie but did not blow me away. It is kind of like a meatloaf and mashed potato dinner – a solid, tasty, filling meal but not something I would rave about. My criteria for a good movie – would I see it again? Yes I would but only if I was in the mood for meatloaf.
References
The meatloaf reference made me laugh out loud.
ReplyDeleteNice ending. I want to see this movie. I like Affleck, I love Boston.
Cool, thanks =)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great review Jackie. The movie sounds good. They do have thick accents in the Boston area...I used to have a very close friend who said "cah" for car, "stowa" for store and "Doah" for door. He was from Sturbridge, Massachusetts.
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