Displaying a true love of his Boston roots,
Ben Affleck directs, acts, and co-writes
The Town
, a heist drama set in the gentrifying suburb
Charlestown. Orchestrated by "The Florist" (
Pete Postlethwaite), a group of men take on risky bank robberies throughout the city. One of them, Doug
MacRay (Ben
Affleck), strays from the pack, falling in love with the manager (
Rebecca Hall) of a bank they violently robbed. His affair and desire to leave a life of crime creates tension with longtime friend and cohort "
Jem" (
Jeremy Renner). Meanwhile FBI agent Adam
Frawley (
Jon Hamm) tries to nab Doug and his crew.
The film works best with the tense, slam-
bam action scenes (expertly edited by
Dylan Tichenor) but falls flat when centered on Doug's character.
Affleck isn't a strong enough thespian to pull off such a complicated person. His courtship of Hall (after aiming AK 47s at her, kidnapping her and making her think she was going to die) is more creepy than touching (though the film strives for this, particularly in a gooey final act). Their relationship often strains credulity. It might have been a better picture had
Affleck traded places with
Renner. The electrifying
Hurt Locker
star infuses life into a thankless role. Between the elaborate, noisy heists, the script attempts a
back story for Doug. A jail/telephone scene with
Chris Cooper as Doug's father and a monologue where an expressionless
Affleck describes his mother abandoning him--whilst in "
Underoos"--are particularly unmoving.
The Town boasts a great supporting cast but their parts are so underwritten they seem like throwaways.
Blake Lively does her best to shed glossy
Gossip Girl
character as
Jem's drug addicted sister, but really, her scenes could have been cut without much effect on the film except making it snappier. And Jon
Hamm really needs a part where he can display some range. In
Howl
, we have Don Draper, the lawyer. In
The Town, Don Draper, the FBI agent. Lovers of crime pictures may like this one more than I did (it's a box office hit with rave reviews to boot) but with such a flat actor at the helm, I found it particularly lacking in emotional resonance, especially when compared to morally
ambiguous Bostonian films in similar vein: the shattering
Departed
and Eastwood's
Mystic River.
-Jeffery Berg
I asked If You Have Ghosts to share some of his horror favorites. (They are all favorites of mine as well!).
My friend Noah Michelson's revealing interview with Perez Hilton on Out.
is a lot better than the recent rash of horror remakes (the barely watchable Michael Bay treatments of Friday the 13th
and Texas Chainsaw Massacre
and the deplorable Rob Zombie Halloween 
films). Wes Craven's story of child killer Freddy Krueger (presented here as a nursery school gardener and child molester) invading the dreams of suburban teens is so ingrained in popular culture that this rehash is pretty much useless. Jackie Earle Haley (who once auditioned for the original) is a creepy Krueger but never matches the unforgettable menace of Robert Englund. Unlike most recent horror fare, music video director Samuel Bayer takes time with the characters, creating space for heroine Nancy (Rooney Mara of The Social Network 
and forthcoming Girl with a Dragon Tattoo
) and her concerned mother (Connie Britton) to give sensitive performances. Yet, as the teens struggle to unlock the mystery that's been unlocked in horror history since 1984, the film loses a lot of momentum (Nancy's showdown in the first film is much more inventive and still suspenseful). Glossier and less campy, Bayer's new, CGI-enhanced visual cues are a nice tribute but pale in comparison to the creativity of the shoestring originals. The scariest thing to me was realizing that these teens were in preschool in 1995!
