The Town

[Eric]

I wrote this about "The Town" back at the beginning of the year when I created my lists:



Ben Affleck is a bank robber! Oh my! Affleck throws out some turds in between his good movies…jesus, I just looked and Affleck hasn’t had a good movie in a long, long, long time. 1997, "Good Will Hunting" and "Chasing Amy"…then crap, crap, crap, crap...
Anyway, Ben Affleck is a bank robber, along with Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker), and a couple other guys, along with some FBI agents and ladies (including Blake Lively). The movie apparently follows Affleck & his team after the heist as the FBI attempts to catch them. If they go “Reservoir Dogs” it could be good. Affleck is directing, so that might actually help this film, as “Gone Baby Gone” was great (also directed by Affleck). I could see it crash and burn if it’s a standard bank robber movie.


There is finally a trailer for this flick and I have to say, it looks great. I put it on my "Surprises of 2010" and if the movie holds up to the trailer it will be a surprise hit.

Of course it could end up being a standard "main guys is actually one of the bank robbers" movie, but they're already showing that Affleck is one of the guys behind the masks in the trailer, so there's probably more to it than this.

Looks good!

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/thetown/

[Chadwick]

This movie was the best i have seen in 3 years at least. I am a huge fan of HEAT. It was pinnacle for DiNiro, Pacino, and Kilmer. Sizemore was also very good. Heat had some fantastic scenes including one of the best street shootouts in any movie ever.

The Town is a much upgraded Heat for the next generation. It is more stylistic (being set in Charlestown Boston vs a more bland L.A.) It is very well written and directed.

Go see it.

5/5

[Cake]

I dunno if it was like Heat as I have never seen Heat, keep your goddamn comment about that to yourselves! The Town was definitely amazing though. I reaaaaaaaly hate Ben Afflek, so i was expecting to be disappointed, and i really hate the hurt locker so Jeremy Renner was not helping, but the movie itself turned out to be really intense with a great story. And let's not forget Mad Men's John Hamm was in this and he hates women so he's doing something right.

[Klaus]

Cake - go rent Heat now.

[Cake]

So I just got an android based phone wtf is this taptalk thing?

[Klaus]

Its a forum reader app. Get it in the market for free.... but its only free for reading forums, to post you gotta buy it.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

[Kyrillian]

Seriously go see Heat.

[Chadwick]

Heat is a whole evening experience. Grab a 6 pack and enjoy.

Make sure you watch it on a good TV with a REALLY GOOD sound system and turn that shit up.

[Kyrillian]

I saw The Town last night. I thought it was a pretty good movie. Great acting, great cast. I think Jeremy Renner made the movie. This movie was like Heat combined with the Departed but I don't think it was as good as either of those films.

I really felt as if this movie was missing something to push it into the catagory with films like The Departed and Heat though. I can't put my finger on what exactly, but I know when I left the theater after seeing The Departed I was like whoaa, and then I got in my phone booth time machine and went home.

I give it a 4/5. I almost deducted another point for Ben Affleck putting in a pointless scene to show off his six pack abs.

[Klaus]

Heat combined with the Departed but I don't think it was as good as either of those films..

I really liked this movie but didn't love it. I agree with the above quote - just seemed to be missing something. Also, a couple of the get away scenes were quite unbelievable and the Shawshank ending on the beach???? really

4/5 for a decent action movie.

[Grafton]

The wife and I rented this over the weekend and to be perfectly honest both of us were very disappointed. As mentioned above, the getaway scene is just retarded.

@@Klaus, can you spoiler tag the below? And PM me on how to do it myself in the future? Thanks@@

They've got the entire BPD on their ass, copters overhead, and all they do to lose the cops is turn left and not take the bridge... "They're headed for the bridge! Pull off all pursuit and just wait for them there!" Stupid. Also, they keep getting away even though police "should" know what they look like. "I put a costume on that clearly shows my face, I'll just walk past 50 police officers that are specifically here to catch me". Ridiculous.

Maybe I'm just cynical, I just got finished re-watching "The Wire", so a thief movie without much depth probably wasn't a good thing for me to watch. I understand you don't have the time in movies to establish characters and plot that you do in a TV show, so with that said I give this a:

2/5

[Jomama]

You cant really compare "the wire" to anything.. Its in a class of its own... It should get the Pulitzer for literature...

[Eric]

I reviewed "The Town" on my movie blog (that I know you are all following through the RSS feed button cause you're awesome)

http://nielsonratings.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/rating-the-town/

[Grafton]

Just read your review Boon...

In it, you note that you were especially impressed with the details, the bank robbery, and the chase sequences. Here's the thing though, I feel like that's the only thought they put into the movie... except when they turn left to lose the cops.

I think there were some pretty major details they overlooked:

The "big heist" is "robbing the cathedral of Boston", followed by gratuitous shots of Fenway park. This sets an interesting backdrop for the finale, I guess. But... why does Fenway have upwards of 15-20 million dollars in cash on the premises? Am I to believe the Sox are playing their players in cash? Because I'm not going to believe this is from attendance to the game, as I'm guessing next to no one is paying cash for seats at a Sox game. And I don't think you can call this nitpicky, it's the central heist of the movie, and I see no reason for that money to exist. It just made me think Ben Affleck wanted an excuse to film at Fenway cause fuck that Jimmy Fallon guy for ruining his world series, which I do get.

I also am not a fan of the whole, he's a bad guy but he's in love so it's okay that he's a thief and murderer. I had no reason to root for this guy, and I didn't.

The big boss man is a florist... har har... I get the fake irony that a super tough guy cuts flowers all day. Cept his only muscle appears to be an old fat guy with a shot gun. He scares the crap out of people and I can't understand why, when all it took was one idiot with a gun to take down the entire criminal organization... of two guys.

And by the way.. that's stolen money bitch! You can't use that to fund a new arena... We're supposed to believe that she dropped this money off anonymously with a note saying, "get an arena". Well, pretty sure the IRS isn't going to be cool with that.. people like to know where money is coming from. But it's the filmaker's way of telling the audience, "see, it's okay that he stole the money". But it's really not, give it back. And Ben should be in jail... he stole a ton of shit, probably has a few vehicular manslaughter chargers under his belt, and oh yeah, he killed two people in cold blood. Were they good people? No. Does that matter? Not the last time I checked. Go murder a child molester and see if they still throw you in prison.

You loved the movie for the details... I disliked the movie for the details. :P I don't think it's being nitpicky to dislike a movie because of plot or logic holes. We need to demand more of movies.

I agree that I was in a bad frame of mind to watch the movie, but I'm not seeing what everyone else is seeing when they list it at 4 or 5/5...

[Kyrillian]

I believe the large amount of cash was on hand because it was the concessions from a weekends worth of playoff games, those are mostly paid in cash. I could believe that 3-4 games worth of beer concessions from those dirty bostonites would be at least $20 million in cash.

As for the arena, think back to where Affleck first runs into the chick when he's stalking her...AT THE LAUNDROMAT! I think that makes it pretty obvious how she was able to use that money for the skating rink.

I do agree they didn't really flesh enough of the Florist's story out to really make him all that intimidating. The flower shop is obviously his front for his operation, so I don't think it's really that funny that the tough guy cuts flowers.

The more I discuss this movie the more I dislike it though. The only good things were Renner and surprisingly, Blake Lively.

[Eric]

Just read your review Boon...

Loved your comments. Hilarious.

For me, it was still a good movie, I didn't let the little things ruin it. I'm notoriously forgiving if I'm enjoying myself while watching a movie (*cough* Star Wars), so you shouldn't be surprised that even though I picked certain things apart I still rated it highly.

In my opinion it was still a great movie.

[Kyrillian]

I generally believe you have to suspend disbelief for movies. I really hate when people criticize movies for having impossible things happen. I remember when I was a kid people would talk about Die Hard like "no way can he run across all that broken glass!". Yea there is also no way 1 guy can take out a highly trained crew of terrorists. It's a movie

But in The Town the movie is making an effort to be gritty and realistic, so I think it missed the mark with some of the things that are especially ridiculous.

[Jomama]

I generally believe you have to suspend disbelief for movies. I really hate when people criticize movies for having impossible things happen. I remember when I was a kid people would talk about Die Hard like "no way can he run across all that broken glass!". Yea there is also no way 1 guy can take out a highly trained crew of terrorists. It's a movie

But in The Town the movie is making an effort to be gritty and realistic, so I think it missed the mark with some of the things that are especially ridiculous.


Its all about context for me, but I can suspend disbelief for almost anything, but it has to kinda remain the context the filmmakers create... In this case its supposed to be all realistic like you said, but they really gutpunch you in the middle with the "drive down the alley= lose entire police force" getaway... That was the only one that really took me out of it while I was watching it (which I did 3 times in about 2 weeks, I definitely enjoyed it)... The rest was believable enough (the whole thing about the town being a armor car robbing mecha is fabricated, but it was a great way to start the story)..

So visually just a fantastic film, Afleck has a great eye (or his staff does)... and eh.. the story is ok (totally rehashed).. oh well...