'The Town' Review: No Sophomore Slump For Director Affleck

The television ads comparing “The Town” to “Heat” and “The Departed” are more than a little misleading. Though it does have its moments, director/co-writer Ben Affleck’s sophomore effort is nowhere near as operatic as “Heat,” and unlike “The Departed,” this compelling and at times moving story about the price of misguided neighborhood loyalties doesn’t suck with the power of a thousand black holes. In fact, it doesn’t suck at all. After climbing his way out of tabloid hell with the superb “Gone Baby Gone,” Affleck’s done it again. “The Town” might lack the emotional staying power of his debut, but the artist formerly known as Bennifer has proven he was not the beneficiary of beginner’s luck and that he’s now an evolving filmmaker with a real talent worth keeping an eye on.

Before the story begins, we’re informed that Charlestown, a working class, one-square mile Boston neighborhood, has produced more bank and armored car robbers than anywhere else in the country. Someone looking to help his hometown retain that dubious distinction is Doug MacRay (Affleck), the brains behind a four man crew whose job is to carefully work out the details necessary to make their daring heists a little less so. Unfortunately, the most unpredictable element on every job is Jem (Jeremy Renner), a volatile, violent and increasingly paranoid ex-con willing to kill or be killed in order to avoid a return to prison.

Jem’s paranoia leads to the crew’s first ever taking of a hostage. Claire, a young, attractive bank employee is blindfolded, taken for a ride and eventually released, but afterwards Jem can’t over the fact that she feels like a loose end that needs to be dealt with. Though he’s most certainly a hardcore thief willing to pull the trigger in a getaway situation, Doug doesn’t want to cross the line where innocent people get hurt and so he convinces Jem to let him keep an eye on Claire in order to find out if she really is a loose end. And because most every movie needs a contrivance to make that movie work, though she has no idea who he is, Doug and Claire fall for one another, which obviously complicates things in ways that go well beyond Doug’s sense of brotherly loyalty to Jem, his best friend since childhood.

The price of loyalty is very much the theme at work here and our protagonist, who’s both cursed and blessed with the ability to see something beyond the life directly in front of him, is paying a price for sticking by his friends. Unlike Jem and his drug-addicted ex-girlfriend and his imprisoned father (Chris Cooper), Doug’s socialization into a dead-end life of crime didn’t completely take hold. As a one-time local hockey star who felt the touch of another life before self-destructing, Doug knows that through becoming a better man the promise of a better future awaits. Claire represents that promise, but the same conscience telling Doug to start over and to make amends for his past sins won’t allow him to cut and run on the flawed and sometimes dangerous people who both love him and have sacrificed for him.

To Affleck’s great credit, Doug is not presented as some sort of charming gangster able to walk cleanly and with a sense of integrity through his sordid criminal life. To avoid prison and to defend his friends, he’s quite capable of violence. And yet, again to Affleck’s credit, we root for this character. The impressive story tension, which is what holds your attention throughout, is all a result of your wanting Doug to make some smart choices and find a way out. Though he most certainly deserves to see the inside of a jail, there’s no doubt that if he’s able to escape his present circumstance Doug will become that better man.

There are three robbery sequences, each of them impressively staged and shot, especially an exciting car chase that takes place through Boston’s impossibly thin streets. There’s also a climatic shootout involving a central character you won’t soon forget. These are the moments that help smooth over a 130-minute runtime that feels sluggish in spots. Still, to be fair, by the final fade, the length does feel exactly right as does the story’s sense of place. Shot mostly on location, you feel as though you’ve spent some real time in Charlestown. This includes the actors’ Boston accents which are performed just right: we never notice them.

One serious flaw is the characterization of Doug’s F.B.I. pursuer, Special Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm). Affleck appears to lack the confidence needed to round Frawley out with any kind of warmth or humanity. Though he’s the one trying to do the right thing, Frawley’s lazily portrayed as some sort of heartless a yuppie shark only interested in winning, and this is where “The Town” falls short of “Heat.” The film is based on Chuck Hogan’s “Prince of Thieves,” and maybe Affleck’s just being true to his source material, but that doesn’t stop this character from coming as a weak trope to create a more sympathetic anti-hero by comparison.

The performances are mostly very good, especially the always superb Renner who gives the character of Jem a likable charm that helps to make sense of Doug’s torn loyalties. He may be a sociopath, but he’s our sociopath. And while the relationship between Claire and Doug lacks chemistry, you still want them to find a way to be together. Pete Postlethwaite also has a showy role as the local gangster through whom all things flow, from local crime to your very own past.