I’ve heard many people gripe that The Town was formulaic, unoriginal, or had wooden performances. Let me attempt to refute all of those, because The Town was actually a truly impressive directorial accomplishment, a movie I’d place in the pantheon of outstanding contemporary Boston films (The Paper Chase, Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, The Departed).
Just an overall capsule review: I felt the movie had great performances, anchored by Jeremy Renner, and a plot that was inventive and enthralling, if at some points recognizable. Affleck’s directing went quite well, and this movie is a major feather in his cap (hate that phrase, but it’s the best the fits here). It’s a film that had its twists and turns, and in the end was unflinching and actually rejected the tired outcome many probably expected.
The same acting issues some see as flaws were completely intentional and perfectly suited to what this movie required. Affleck’s performance was not wooden or bland, but rather, understated. The same goes for Renner, the best part of the movie. Renner played James Coughlin as a rough, stoic Masshole with not much to him, no real ambitions beyond robbing banks, watching Boston sports, drinking beers with his pals. He played him that way because that’s who the character is. He wants for nothing beyond what he’s been given by his upbringing, and that’s what creates the tension between his character and Affleck’s (Doug), who is not similarly satisfied and clearly has an itch to get out of town when the movie first starts.
Frenemies
This, then, also provides the answer to those who argue (and so many have) that the relationship between Doug and Rebecca Hall’s character, Claire, is implausible and happens too quickly. That’s inaccurate because the relationship between those two is not the point. it isn’t what fuels the plot. What fuels Doug’s actions is his relationship to his town. There’s a reason the movie isn’t called The Girl. It isn’t even called The Friends. It’s about Doug wanting to get out of his stasis in Charlestown and do something else.
That’s why we don’t need to see any gripping, incredibly touching emotional connection evidenced between Doug and Claire; Doug doesn’t need it to be true love at first sight. For him, it’s enough that she’s cute, kind, soft, and unlike Charlestown girls (she’s the antithesis to Blake Lively’s character). And his affection and companionship is enough for her, too—we see enough (maybe the bare minimum, I admit) to see that she’s pretty calm and subdued and just wants to have a job and be with someone who treats her well. She, too, is lonely in Charlestown, like Doug.
That’s why (spoiler alert) the climax of the movie is not Doug’s final goodbye with Claire (via phone, with Jon Hamm in the room), nor is it even the Fenway heist, when Renner gets gunned down. It’s at the very end, when we see him down south, on his porch, finally free of the town.
My only problem with the movie, in fact, was Jon Hamm’s character, a totally cliched depiction of an FBI agent. And it wasn’t Hamm’s fault (he’s a great actor), they just gave him some of the movie’s worst lines. I’m not sure it gets any cornier than an agent reminding someone that he’s grilling for information, “You know, we are a national organization.” In addition, Blake Lively was surprisingly believable in a role that is miles from her Gossip Girl character, but I do think the very prolonged, graphic sex scene between her and Doug in the first half hour is completely unnecessary.
Otherwise, terrific acting (I’d like to see Renner get a Supporting Actor nomination, but I doubt it) and great directing by Affleck, who has really become a serious-films-only kind of actor. I also love the way Doug figures out that Claire isn’t actually betraying him (when he sees her in the room with Hamm, and she says, “come over,” but then she says, “It’ll be just like my sunny days,”) and the open-ended conclusion (I believe you’re supposed to think that Claire will find Doug eventually, but my girlfriend said the point is they won’t be together, and that Doug knows this and accepts it as fair punishment for his crimes). Surely the Town is one of the year’s best films.
Daniel B. Roberts 
Melissa M.
August 16, 2011
Nice write up. I’m a bit late too the party, as I’ve only seen the film recently; just read the book too.
mplo
September 17, 2011
I liked the book a whole lot better than the film, which was quite overrated and cheesy.
mplo
January 8, 2012
The Town: A Stupid, Overrated, Crappy Movie:
Hey, folks, I’m in the mood to post this, so here I am. I recognize the fact that most people really like Ben Affleck’s most recent movie, The Town, and I would’ve wanted to like it, too, but imho, there’s too much wrong with The Town for me not to look at this film with much harsher judgement and a much more critical eye than many, if not most people.
I admittedly liked Ben Affleck a lot in Good Will Hunting, because he and Matt Damon did a great job working together in this particular movie. Good Will Hunting, imo, is a good film that really worked. However, I think that Ben Affleck fell badly on The Town, and part if it is probably due to the fact that he took on two jobs; directing and playing the lead character.
Imho, The Town is an overrated, cheesy piece of junk that’s more like a feature-length made-for TV soap opera than a regular movie, which never, ever should’ve made it into the cinemas at all, in the first place. Yet, I realize that, in order to get the democratic society that we all long for, different viewpoints have to be aired, no matter how much at odds they may be with each other. .
The cast is mediocre at best, the plot and story are overused, the Boston accents, especially on the part of Ben Affleck, are forced and way overdone, and the chemistry between Doug and Claire is non-existent to paltry, at best. One of the most, if not the most bothersome aspects of The Town is the message that it clearly conveys; that it’s okay to steal and rob innocent people of money that they don’t deserve to lose, to terrorize, permanently maim, put innocent bank employees and customers’ lives and safety at risk, to abet an armed felon and wanted fugitive (Doug MacRay, the ringleader)to escape the law by getting involved romantically with him, allow him to buy expensive Tiffany diamond necklaces for one, and make utter dupes of law enforcement people who’ve been assigned to bring guys like Doug MacRay to justice and end their robbery careers once and for all, by lying to the Feds, and tipping an armed felon and wanted fugitive (Doug MacRay) off to them and helping them escape. I think it’s totally wrong.
Oh, and why is it okay for good-girl Claire to receive stolen goods and spend that ill-gotten money on the renovation of a seedy hockey rink and dedicate it to her criminal boyfriend’s mother who she never knew, instead of arranging to turn it into the police anonymously?
Hey…come on! Doug put the romance moves on Claire when he met her, in order to shut her up and warn her oh, so subtely not to talk to the Feds or else! One’s supposed to think that Doug really loves Claire and is attrracted to her by her winsome personality, but nothing could be further from the truth, imo. He found Claire attractive, in that she was clearly vulnerable after being traumatized by him and his guys after they held up her bank at gunpoint, and therefore quite gullible and open to exploitation. Almost as soon as Doug got what he wanted out of Claire (a promise not to go to the cops or the Feds), he left the money in her garden and skipped town for Florida, because he was on the lam from the law and couldn’t elope with Claire and exploit her as a bargaining chip, the way he’d wanted to do. Yet, there’s another reason why Doug left Claire behind when he skipped town for Florida instead of taking her with him; Doug’s days of hiding out down in Florida in a house overlooking a bayou were numbered, that sooner or later he’d be hunted down and caught, perhaps violently, by the Feds, and at some level, both he and Claire must’ve known that. It was especially obvious when FBI Agt. Frawley said to Claire “You know the FBI is a national organization”, and then requested that the descriptions and photos of Doug MacRay be circulated. Isn’t it funny how the vast majority of people, either naively or in willful ignorance, miss all of the above!
It’s funny how most people don’t realize that Doug was a sociopath who totally exploited the women in his life; Krista for sex, and he left her with nothing, even though he knew she had a young child to take care of (who might or might not be Doug’s), and Claire, who he thought he could elope to Florida with, but could not, after having charmed her into trusting him and then worming his way into her heart so that she’d shut up and not talk to the Feds. One is supposed to sympathize with both Doug and Claire, but, in reality, neither of them deserved any sympathy.
Imho, when the Feds had Claire and Doug meet at her Charlestown condo in a last-ditch effort to nab Doug MacRay and send him off to a Federal penitentiary for his crimes, the Feds should’ve made Claire keep her big fat trap shut, not to call Doug or answer any of his phone calls, and let them do their job of arresting Doug and bringing him to prison for his crimes.
Doug deserved to end up in a federal penitentiary for his crimes, and Claire deserved to be criminally prosecuted herself, or at least put on some sort of probation for abetting Doug and for receiving stolen goods (Doug’s illl-gotten heist money).
I’m sorry, folks, but I cannot bring myself to be sympathetic to either Doug or Claire, who, imho, turned out to be the most dislikable, and annoying characters in The Town. I also think the fact that Claire quit her job as a bank manager after the robbery without telling anybody, including the Feds, is also rather suspicious. What most people don’t realize is that Doug is an armed felon and wanted fugitive who’s on the lam from the law, so he’s not going to Florida on vacation. Happily, there’s no way that he and Claire will ever meet again, which is what the final “I’ll see you again, this side or the other” sentence in Doug’s “goodbye, I’ll always love you” letter to Claire before he skipped town for Florida means, but the fact that Claire didn’t turn to Frawley for help after learning the truth about Doug and reallizing that she was in over her head, is beyond stupid, and wrong.
The fact that Doug and Jem beat the crap out of two Dominicans from a housing project who’d supposedly thrown bottles at Claire when she’d been stupid enough to walk by herself through a housing project (no woman in her right mind would do that, at any time of night or day), permanently cripple them, and then order them out of Charlestown especially since Doug and Jem didn’t even tell the two Dominicans why they are beating him up, shows that underneath that smooth, sweet-talking, gentle veneer of his, Doug, as well as Jem, is a man of unprovoked violence, and more like his incarcerated father (who, btw, is serving several life sentences in MCI-Cedar Junction for bank robbery and murder) than he would’ve liked to admit. My, my!…Lady Claire must’ve felt flattered that two armed felons who were also wanted fugitives from the law came to her defense! Pretty sickening, this whole thing.
mplo
March 13, 2012
“.More often than not, the typical psychopath will seem particularly agreeable and make a distinctly positive impression when he is first encountered. Alert and friendly in his attitude, he is easy to talk with and seems to have a good many genuine interests. There is nothing at all odd or queer about him, and in every respect he tends to embody the concept of a well-adjusted, happy person … He looks like the real thing.”
And from Dr. Hare’s (‘The Hare Psychopathy Checklist’) Checklist:
1. GLIB and SUPERFICIAL CHARM.
2. GRANDIOSE SELF-WORTH.
3. PATHOLOGICAL LYING.
4. CONNING AND MANIPULATIVENESS
5. LACK OF REMORSE OR GUILT
6. SHALLOW AFFECT.
7. CALLOUSNESS and LACK OF EMPATHY
8. LACK OF REALISTIC, LONG-TERM GOALS
9. IRRESPONSIBILITY.
10. FAILURE TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR OWN ACTIONS.”
Regardless of what anybody says or thinks, I believe that it’s perfectly accurate to call Doug MacRay a sociopath, and the above list of sociopathic traits fits him to a tee.
mplo
July 19, 2012
This is something that still continues to dog me, even though I’ve written about it so many times. Why, oh why do so many people fall for such a hyped-up, cheap, overrated, trashy movie such as The Town, and, more to the point, refuse to accept dissenting opinions on it? It beats me…I don’t know!
I admit to one thing, however: The Town left me rooting for the cops and the FBI, especially Agt. Adam Frawley and wanting them to catch Doug MacRay and his men and send them to jail for their crimes, and to have Claire either criminally prosecuted herself for being an accessory to Doug’s crimes and for tipping him Doug off with a “sunny days” code and enabling him to elude the law, or at least put on some sort of probation for her bullshit. Sure, I sympathized with Claire at first, because she was the victim of an armed bank robbery, which wasn’t her fault, but I completely lost my sympathy for her when she not only got involved, wholesale, in a romance with Doug, but refused to sever all contacts with him even after she learned through Agt. Frawley who Doug MacRay really was, and what he was up to.. Unlike most people, who are sympathetic with Ben Affleck’s character in that film, and with Claire, I am not.
Why should I be sympathetic to either Doug or Claire? The idea that Doug MacRay wanted to change and redeem himself through Claire is utter bullshit, especially after he engaged in an act of vigilantism by taking the law into his own hands, going back to Charlestown, and gunning down Rusty and Fergie just because they threatened Doug’s ladygirl Claire with physical harm. Come on now! Doug MacRay’s still a criminal and he was not the decent guy he came across as when he and Claire met “by chance” in a C-Town laundromat.
Doug MacRay, like his friends and partners in crime, are not only skilled, disciplined and ruthless in their quest for quick money through parasitic behaviors such as armed robbery, and who’d unquestionably kill or seriously injure people enough to put them in the hospital if they’re considered obstacles to what they want, but Doug knows how to come across as a nice guy, when he’s really not. He may not be crazy like his best friend and righthand man, Jem, but he’s a sociopath and a person of unprovoked violence just the same. The fact that he came across as such a nice, charming guy and deceived Claire by pretending to be an upstanding, law-abiding citizen, when he’s really not, is more than disgusting…it’s part of his criminal behavior. As for Claire, the fact that she took Doug’s bait and rose to it is pathetic indeed.
If Doug had really wanted to change, imo, he would’ve turned himself and his guys in, come forward, negociated with the Feds for some protection for him and Claire, and stopped robbing banks once and for all. Doug left for Florida without Claire for two reasons:
A) Doug macRay was an armed felon and wanted fugitive who’d been on the lam from the law for quite awhile, plus he’d just killed Fergie and Rusty.
B) Doug had gotten what he really wanted out of Claire all along; a promise from her not to turn him in, which he got.
How can so many people be so naive or willfully stupid as to miss that?
Also, if Doug wanted to redeem himself, he would’ve come forward, served his time, and
after a prison term, found honest ways to raise the funding for the renovation for the C-Town hockey rink himself, instead of using Claire Keesey as a go-between. What people don’t realize is that Doug wasn’t a nice guy…even to Claire, even though most people firmly believe that. The fact that he deceived her, seduced her and made a total fool out of her was vicious. The fact that Claire acted like a poor, confused, dumb-assed adolescent and allowed herself to be manipulated, made a fool out of and taken advantage of by Doug is pitiful, but she doesn’t deserve pity, due to the fact that she helped the very guy who turned her life upside down and caused her a ton of grief in the first place escape the law.
Now that I think of it, I wouldn’t cared one iota if Doug and Claire had either ended up in jail, or been shot and thrown into the Charles or the Mystic River. An awful thing for me to say, but that’s how disgusted I am with this kind of thing.
As for Kristina, well, I don’t like her sordid lifestyle or behavior (drug and alcohol addiction, sleeping around with too many men, and the fact that she was in the business herself by helping to book hotel rooms and get costumes for Doug and his men, and being a drug mule for Fergie and Rusty), but i’ll say this: I feel kind of sorry for Krista, in a way, because she had far fewer choices than Claire; she’d grown up with Doug and Jem, who, like many other men, abused and exploited her for their own ends. Krista’s daughter, Shyne, still an infant, caught in the middle of all this shit, was innocent, and I felt sorry for her, too.
I’m so sick of people saying that what the white collar criminals (not defending them, btw) are worse than guys like Doug MacRay and his gang, because it’s unrelated, and not true.
Neither the book Prince of Thieves, on which The Town was based, or the movie, make any effort to get at causes of bank robbery and other crimes, and the circumstances under which Doug and his men had grown up under. Moreover, the movie asks the audience to sympathize with Doug MacRay and his men, as well as Claire, who acted stupidly enough to allow Doug to take advantage of her, and who became an accessory to his crimes, while considering law enforcement officials assigned to bring criminals like MacRay and company to their knees and have them locked up in penetentiaries once and for all.
Dez was a smart (he was college-educated and had a regular job) but stupid guy; he was pretty much just along for the ride, and did what he was told to do by the gang, and yet, at the same time, he seemed to be pretty much their victim, as well, if one gets the drift. Dez allowed himself to be taken for a ride, also.
At least the book fleshes out the characters and spends more time on Dez and Krista, and doesn’t focus on the viewpoint of Doug and Jem so much, plus the book takes a far less sympathetic outlook towards Doug and his men.
Sorry, folks, but I can’t bring myself to like this film, except for the very beginning, with the aerial and ground shots of Boston’s Charlestown section, as well as the opening bank heist, but “The Town” went from being okay to being just plain awful…in a matter of minutes..
ChelseaBee
October 3, 2013
Dude… settle down. It’s just a movie.
mplo
November 2, 2013
First of all, ChelseaBee, I happen to be a woman. Secondly, don’t tell me to settle down. I’ll say what I want about this move, and if you don’t like it, that’s YOUR problem, NOT mine!
The Town, imho, for the reasons I stated above, fell woefully short of its potential for being a really good, or perhaps even a great film, and I stand by that position.
I also might add that Doug, Jem and Krista were only going by what they knew, while Claire should’ve known better. She’s not innocent either, given the fact that she not only became an accessory to Doug’s crimes, but accepted stolen goods (Doug’s blood-stained loot money) and spent it on the renovation of an ice-hockey rink, which Doug and his men could’ve/should’ve done for themselves. In the case of Claire, as the saying goes, lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. Claire put herself in a bad light by getting and staying involved with Doug in the first place.
Anonymous
February 1, 2014
Mplo: You’re critiquing the characters, not the movie itself. Don’t you see the difference? Excellent movie about some bad characters.
mplo
March 7, 2014
I have to disagree with you here, Anonymous. The characters are the movie, in this case, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll also add this, Anonymous: I actively dislike “The Town” due to the message that this film conveys to ME, personally; that people don’t have to be held accountable for their actions and behaviors, that anything goes, as long as people can get what they want, that it’s okay to be an accessory to a criminal and his crimes (which Claire clearly became when she hooked up with Doug MacRay and refused to sever contact with him even after learning who he was and what he was up to.), and that putting innocent people’s lives at risk and terrorizing them doesn’t matter, that it’s perfectly fine to obstruct justice by making dupes out of law enforcement people who’re trying to do their assigned jobs of bringing dangerous and violent criminals to justice, and to enable somebody with a long record of armed robbery, aggravated assault and murder on top of those, to go free and avoid going back to prison (both of which Claire Keesey did.).
Inotherwords, this movie glorifies crime and stupidity, in addition to being very cheesy and junky.