The Town is Like Any Other Town

The Town

Can anyone name a member of the National Board of Review? Who are they? And why do so many film lovers, myself included, go into hysterics once they release their annual best of the year list? Despite not knowing who actually comprises the NBR, their annual best of list marks the official start of the three month long award season. Though I normally agree with their selections, there have been times when the NBR has unjustly raised my hopes for a film. Such was the case with the cops and robbers caper, The Town. As The Town made NBR’s top ten list this year, I was expecting the film to have something truly magical. That special moment which made The Town standout above the other 250 films that the NBR screened this year. Instead, The Town ended up being a standard crime film with a few well shot action sequences.

Set in the Charlestown section of Boston, notoriously known for the high percentage of criminals it produces, The Town follows a group of friends as they try to elude the FBI while going after one final score. Ring leader Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) is starting to tire of the criminal lifestyle. Although good at what he does, he knows that if he stays in Charlestown he will end up behind bars like his father, Stephen (Chris Cooper). Doug envisions a better life for himself after meeting Claire (Rebecca Hall), who happens to be the manager of a bank MacRay’s team has robbed. While Doug longs for a life outside of Charlestown, his best friend James (Jeremy Renner) wants the team to continue their streak of bank robberies. With FBI Agent Frawley (John Hamm) closing in on the gang, Doug must decide where is loyalties truly lie.

The Town is a decent, if not predictable, crime movie. What makes the film work for the most part are the performances from the cast. Not to mention the skilled direction of Ben Affleck. Affleck proved with his directorial debut, and vastly superior film, Gone Baby Gone, that he knows how to get strong performances out of his cast. I especially enjoyed the work of Pete Postlethwaite and Chris Cooper in their very brief cameos. I also like how Affleck orchestrates his action sequences. The heist scenes, particularly the one that evolves into a brilliant car chase scene with the gang evading the cops in a minivan. These are easily the most tenses moments in the entire film.

So why did this film not “wow” me the way it did the NBR? I just could not get past its predictability. Not to mention that The Town has too many loose ends which are never fully realized. The two most interesting aspects of the story are Doug’s relationship with his father, and the father’s past with Fergus (Postlethwaite). Unfortunately we only get a small snippet of the father/son arc. The audience must rely on Fergus to shed further light into Stephen’s defeated state. Yet Fergus is introduced far too late in the picture. The Town spends so much time building up both the love story and the Doug/Agent Frawley angle that the sudden appearance of Fergus towards the end seems rather out of place. Either introduce Fergus sooner, and cut down on the pointless Krista (Blake Lively) plotline, or leave both him and Stephan out of the picture completely.

As heist films go, The Town is enjoyable as it often feels like a lighter version of Michael Mann’s Heat. The film works best if you temper your expectations. If you go in expecting anything more you will be greatly disappointed. Many are calling The Town one of the year’s best films, but it is ultimately nothing more than a competent crime film that may keep you entertained for a few hours. 

Pitch The LAMB: Crash Years

The following is my submission for the Pitch the LAMB feature over at The Large Association of Movie Blogs site (aka. The LAMB). The genre for this month's Pitch the LAMB is Slasher Films. Bloggers are encouraged to come up with an idea for a movie in that genre style.

Crash Years

Despite massive layoffs over the last two years, Union Prima, the world’s leading insurance company, has achieved record profits during that span. Many have accused Union Prima of using the recession as a loophole to violate many of the corporate ethics laws; yet no one has been able to prove it...until now. Alec Sherbert, one of Union Prima’s underpaid mailroom clerks, has been secretly providing a spunky journalist, Shelia Bubletei , with classified documents for weeks. Now on the eve of Union Prima’s annual shareholder’s meeting, Alec is just a few documents away from helping blow the scandal wide open.

Unfortunately for Alec, a bigger story is emerging right before his eyes. On the day of the shareholder’s meeting Alec discovers the body of prominent shareholder in one of the mailroom bins. With the doors leading outside mysteriously locked, and unable to reach Shelia as the phone lines have been cut, Alec’s only hope is to find the last bit of information Sheila needs and find a way out of the building. As the bodies pile up in gruesome fashion, many killed with various office supplies, Alec races to evade the masked killer wielding a serrated letter opener.

After finding the last required file on Shelia’s list, Alec risks his life to save Union Prima CEO Jean Ason from the mysterious killer. Alec and the killer battle until the sound of police men coming up the building distracts them. By time the police reach the executive floor of Union Prima, Ason is crying over Alec’s dead body and the wounded killer is nowhere to be found. As the police remove Alec’s body, a file drops out of his jacket. The file is the work history of Hector Shont, an accountant who was part of the massive layoffs. Unable to pay his bills, Hector committed suicide. Hector’s was survived only by his daughter Sheila whose whereabouts were listed as unknown.

Cast
Alec Sherbert – Jay Baruchel
Shelia Bubletei – Rebecca Hall
Jean Ason – Emma Thompson