THE TOWN

There are many scenes in 'The Town' that make you want to yell out to the screen, warn the characters of what's to come, knowing that you know something that they don't, that allow you to get sucked into the movie and the outcome of the characters.  Whether what we're feeling is fear, anger, joy...whatever - is inconsequential.  We're forced to feel something, which to me, is all you can really ask from a good movie.  To actually care about what happens on the screen.  We can thank Jeremy Renner for most of those feelings in 'The Town'.

Being Charlestown born and raised, I of course couldn't wait to see this movie.  I was intrigued to see how 2nd time director (Gone Baby Gone) and Cambridge born Ben Affleck would handle the intricacies and uniqueness that is Charlestown, and what his vision of real Townies would look like and act like.  Doug MacRay (Affleck) and Jimmy 'Jem' Coughlin (Renner) have the look and mannerisms down.  Totally casual, Bruins t-shirts, Townie sweatshirts, Red Sox jackets - the only thing missing were the Girbaud jeans.  Surprisingly, Affleck's accent seems forced though, but Renner's, while slightly over the top, actually comes across as fairly legit. 

The story itself is about MacRay, Coughlin, and two of their other buddies who rob banks and armored cars, and all hail from Charlestown.  MacRay's the brains, Coughlin's the brawn, and FBI Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) is the foil.  Frawley's onto them, but doesn't have enough hard evidence to pick them up or put them away.  MacRay ends up falling for Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall), a bank manager that Coughlin took hostage during one of their hits, and the movie unfolds with Doug trying to keep his identity to Keesey a secret while hiding the relationship from Coughlin.

Unfortunately for me, I read Chuck Hogan's book 'The Prince of Thieves' (the book on which the movie is based) right before seeing the movie, so I couldn't help but do the whole "That's not what happens in the book!" dance the entire time.  I really wish I hadn't read it first, if only because, and I hate to be 'that guy', but the book was infinitely better than the movie.  Don't get me wrong, I can only imagine the difficulty in transforming 360 pages into a 2 hour movie while trying to capture the essence of the characters, but there was so much that got left out, the excellent human interest story that was book got lost in a hail of machine gun fire in the movie. 

Affleck went full on Hollywood here, going for car chases and gun battles rather than showing some restraint and allowing the Affleck / Hall story to unfold more slowly, letting us really feel the struggle that MacRay feels in trying to please his buddies while looking to move on with his life.  Looking past the simple question of 'why' MacRay would ever even try to develop a relationship with the one person that could point him out to the authorities, the story is interesting in and of itself. Additionally, it allows us to see MacRay (the bad guy trying to become a good guy) as the protagonist in the film, with is best friend, Coughlin, as the clear antagonist.  Keeps your friends close, and your enemies closer.....

As Jem, Renner is even better here than he was in The Hurt Locker.  He's unpredictable, vulgar, rude, and an all around jerk.  You can't help but feel genuinely uncomfortable every time he's on the screen.  In one of my favorite scenes in the movie, Affleck's MacRay tells Renner's Coughlin, "I need to ask you a favor, but I can't tell you why and you can never ask me about it.  But we're gonna go hurt somebody".  Coughlin's answer? "Who's car are we taking?".  Perfect.  My hope is that Renner will be considered for a Best Supporting Actor award here.  Pete Postlethewaite is also great as an old time 'Town guy who gets kicks backs on the jobs that Affleck and his crew pull off.

Ok, so overall....what did I think?  I liked it.  I really liked it for what it was, which is a shoot 'em up heist movie, set in Boston.  It was absolutely a kick to see so many shots of Charlestown, some of it's residents (hey, that's Jack Schievink!), and get the feeling that I was able to pick up on things that the other 300 people in the theater didn't pick up on.  If the movie was set in Portland and everyone was trying to pull off whatever accent people in Oregon might have - I undoubtedly wouldn't have cared half as much.  That being said - I'm from Charlestown, and this is as close to a 'Charlestown movie' as we're probably going to see.

Affleck did put it in a nice dedication at the beginning of the credits to the good people of Charlestown, telling the world that despite the material and bad name that a film like this could give to such a small town, that Charlestown was full of some of the best and hardest working folks around.  Good people.  Real people.  In fact, anyone who sees this movie will get several bird's eye views of Charlestown and Boston, as Affleck grossly overuses the 'panaromic helicopter view of the city' shot. 

I wanted to...REALLY wanted to love this movie.  I highly enjoyed the book, and would have loved to have seen a movie that followed the book to a tee.  Having said that, it's a fun movie, it's a funny movie (way more laughs that I would have ever thought, the best one coming from MacRay's dad in prison, when talking about how things were going at MCI Walpole - "It's not like it used to be Dougie. F'n Southie punks are trying to take everything over" - even in the movies, Southie comes in 2nd to Charlestown..), and it's a great popcorn movie.  As long as you don't go in expecting the 2nd coming of The Departed, you'll be fine.  I'll go 4 out of 5 stars due to the location, but I'd be surprised if anyone outside of Greater Boston would go above 3.5.  If you're from around here, you should definitely go see it.