THE TOWN

Directed by: Ben Affleck

There's something about The Town that remind me of Heat (1995) by Michael Mann. First the template story about a bad guy trying to live a straight life, a smart law enforcement agent that will do anything to nail that guy, one last heist for the protagonist to make it right and a deadly shoot out to finish everything. In the middle of it stand one woman the protagonist really care.

Stemming from Bostonian sub-culture, there is no better filmmaker to capture this than Ben Affleck. As we know, he and his buddy Matt Damon successfully write Good Will Hunting but strings of his appearances in Gigli and Daredevil turns me off. However having read all the raving reviews on this film, it turns me on again.

The Town opened with a sophisticated and successful bank robbery. Here Ben Affleck plays Doug MacRay, a guy with bank robbery runs in his blood. His father is also a bank robber and sentenced in prison for so many years.

Doug head a four men team and most notably is the trigger happy temperamental Jem Coughlin (Jeremy Renner, showcasing his acting muscles) who happen to be angry all the time and being a best friend to Doug. During the robbery Doug and his team take Claire (Rebecca Hall) as a hostage and release her afterward, without harm.

It turns out that Claire lives only four blocks away from the robbers and Jem, being paranoid wanted to 'eliminate' Claire. But Doug has better option, he start dating Claire, thus make things more complicated.

In other end of the town there is an FBI agent Frawley (John Hamm), itching wanting to nail Doug and his crews for bank robberies, he just have no evidence at all and his only witness is Claire.

Meanwhile Doug has to lay low while the neighborhood crime boss known as the Florist (a chilling Pete Postlethwaite), who has a strange hold over Doug, insists they pull off one more heist. This is the last heist that will determine everything, including Doug and Claire's fate.

Perhaps you have seen such story in dozens of movies but what makes The Town different and a strong Oscar contender is how tightly paced and stunning the performances are. The shootout is generic, Heat is better but still, it can make you hold your breath.