The Town (2010)
Ben Affleck directs actor Ben Affleck in a film with a screenplay by Ben Affleck.
If this hasn't put you off then the chances are you will, like me, find The Town an excellent thriller.
Set in Boston the film tells the story of a gang of armoured car thieves and the FBI personnel out to stop them.
Affleck, the director makes this interesting for the first hour but not particularly involving in this extended cut i saw for the first time tonight. And oh boy is it extended. I was expecting a few minutes but what we get is an additional 33 minutes. There are lots of scenes with Affleck and Rebecca Hall as their romance blossoms, which to be fair is pivotal to the entire movie and many of these scenes were cut from the theatrical version. It's a little catch 22 as they do slow the film down in truth.
Its worth the effort though as much of what we see and hear bears fruit in the second half of the film, as the main story kicks into gear - The robbing of Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox.
The three main action scenes are frenetic and leave the viewer breathless especially the climactic shoot outs in and around the baseball ground which Affleck brilliantly stages and for me are reminiscent of Michael Mann's Heat in their realism. Another sequence features a robbery with the gang wearing nun masks as seen in the poster below. They'll haunt me for the rest of my days.
The film has a great cast - Affleck, Rebecca Hall, John Hamm, Pete Postlethwaite, Jeremy Renner, Titus Welliver, Blake Lively and a sadly underused Chris Cooper who only has one scene but thankfully Affleck the director gets the best out of them.
I really need to go back and watch the theatrical version again and see which i prefer, but theatrical or extended, The Town is recommended as an intelligent action thriller.
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