"The Town"

Title: "The Town"

Director: Ben Affleck
Producers: G. King and Basil Iwanyk
Editing: Dylan Tichenor
Composer: H.G. Williams and D. Buckley
Starring:
- Ben Affleck as Doug MacRay
- Jon Hamm as Special Agent Adam Frawley
- Rebecca Hall as Claire Keesey
- Jeremy Renner as James "Jem" Coughlin
- Blake Lively as Krista Coughlin
- Chris Cooper as Stephen MacRay
- Slaine as Albert "Gloansy" Magloan
- Titus Welliver as Dino Ciampa
- Pete Postlethwaite as Fergus "Fergie" Colm
- Owen Burke as Desmond "Dez" Elden

Plot and Critical Review: Four lifelong friends—Doug MacRay, James "Jem" Coughli, Albert "Gloansy" Magloan, and Desmond "Dez" Elden, from the dangerous streets of Charlestown, a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts—rob a Cambridge bank, taking bank manager Claire Keesey hostage. After Claire's release, Doug follows her and they begin a relationship. He explains that his mother deserted him as a child and apparently moved to Tangerine, Florida.

FBI agent Adam Frawley surveys the crew of MacRay, Coughlin, Magloan and Elden and realizes they work for "Fergie" Colm, a local florist. Doug is hesitant to undertake their next assignment, and his fears are confirmed during the robbery in the North End, where gunfire erupts. The police arrive quickly, a chase ensues, and the team barely escapes. Frawley then arrests the four of them and interrogates each of them, hoping to get a confession, but fails. Frawley learns of Doug and Claire's relationship through a recorded phone conversation and confronts her about the suspects. Claire is shocked to learn that Doug is a suspect, but Frawley believes she is an accomplice because of her relationship with Doug.

During a visit to his father at the local state prison, Doug reveals his plan to leave Charlestown and go to Florida. Jem approaches Doug with another job, but turns it down. Doug tells Fergie he will not do the job, but Fergie reveals that Doug's mother never left the family; instead, she committed suicide after Fergie got her addicted to drugs in retaliation for Doug's father attempting to also leave Fergie's employ. Fergie tells Doug he will kill Claire if he doesn't agree to the job, so Doug agrees, but threatens to kill him if he even suspects Fergie will harm Claire.

The job is at Fenway Park. Doug and Jem enter dressed as Boston police officers, trick the guards and counting room staff, steal millions of dollars, and prepare to leave in an ambulance dressed as paramedics. Jem spots SWAT officers and begins to shoot. In the firefight, Dez is killed. Gloansy creates a diversion and is killed while Doug and Jem put their cop uniforms back on and slip out. Agent Frawley figures out the ruse, catches sight of Jem, and tries to arrest him. Jem fires at Frawley and tries to escape, but he is cornered by the police. He has a shootout with the police in the middle of the street, and manages to shoot a few of the officers before being wounded in the leg by a blast from Frawley's shotgun. Knowing there is no way out, Jem chooses to let the police kill him in suicide by cop fashion, rather than go to prison.

Doug escapes in a police cruiser, heads to Town Flowers, killing both Fergie and his bodyguard. He calls Claire and asks her to come away with him, but he is watching from his uncle's apartment across the street and can see the FBI are in the same room with her. Claire, at first tells him to come to the room to pick her up, but in the end gives him a coded message to warn him to stay away. Doug takes an MBTA uniform from his uncle's closet and escapes from Boston. Later, Claire finds a bag buried in a community garden. The bag contains money, a tangerine, and a note that ends with "I'll see you again, on this side or the other." Claire uses the money to finance a renovation of a local hockey rink, and dedicates it to Doug's mother. Doug is then seen over an estuary, suggesting that he did, in fact, make it to Florida.

"The Town" has received critical acclaim. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 94% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 202 reviews, with an average score of 7.7/10, making the film a "certified fresh" on the website's rating system. The site describes the film as "tense, smartly written, and wonderfully cast". Review aggregator Metacritic gives the film a score of 74 out of 100 based on 42 critics. Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, praising Jeremy Renner's performance and Affleck's direction.

Several reviewers praised the film's action sequences. In his review for the New York Times, A. O. Scott commented on the opening heist, "That sequence, like most of the other action set pieces in the film, is lean, brutal and efficient, and evidence of Mr. Affleck’s skill and self-confidence as a director." Brooks, in The Guardian, wrote that the action sequences were "sharply orchestrated" but added "it's a bogus, bull-headed enterprise all the same; a film that leaves no cliche untrampled." Justin Chang wrote in Variety that the action scenes strike "an ideal balance between kineticism and clarity" aided by cinematographer Robert Elswit and film editor Dylan Tichenor. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film an A+, noting that he found the film incredibly similar to Michael Mann's "Heat", which he described as "one of my favorite movies of all time."

As a Boston-based crime drama, the movie forms part of a "crime-movie subgenre" typically marked by "flavorsome accents, pungent atmosphere and fatalistic undertow," according to Chang. Within that subgenre, which includes "The Boondock Saints", "The Departed", "Mystic River" and Affleck's "Gone Baby Gone", "The Town" is more of a straightforward crime-procedural and has a more optimistic outlook. (Wikipedia.com)

My Rating: 7.5/10

Content to Caution:
V-4 - Gunfights, fistfights, beatings, stabbings, scuffles, etc.
L-5 - 150+ uses of the "F-Word". Not for children, this one.
DU-1 - Several characters drink heavily, and one character seems to always be using narcotics.
RT-1.5 - No comment.
H/S-2.5 - The violence certainly does ramp up, and the "line of suspense" is kept taught throughout.
CH-3.5 - Plenty of it here.
S/N-2 - Two sex scenes, but no nudity in either. A topless woman is shown at a strip club.

The "Reel Revelation": "Cement Boots"

We cheat on tests.

We lie to our friends.

We betray the confidence of others.

We cut throats to get ahead.

We cover up the evidence so that no one ever finds out.

And...

We confess "I believe in God, the Father, Almighty..."

We say our prayers before bedtime.

We quote Scripture to help the needy and hurting.

We lift our hands and hearts in worship.

We carry our crosses every day.

They seem to be in absolute opposition, the litany of trespasses and the litany of acts of faith. Yet we who believe in Christ one moment are sure to turn our back on Him and sin against God and one another the very next. It's what we do, and we ("we" meaning the human race) have been doing it for so long, we've gotten pretty good at it.

James, speaking only of the tongue (our words), had this much to say:

"But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way." (James 3:8-10)

In "The Town", we get to know a group of fellas who seem to be caught up in the same sort of duality. One moment they're enjoying one another's company, spending time with each other's families, having BBQs, and talking about baseball. The very next they're dressed up as nuns and carrying automatic rifles over their shoulders as they go to rob a bank. Are they not aware of the wrong they're doing? Are we?

Doug MacRay is aware, and as his relationship with Claire deepens, he begins to see the real danger in his "side-job". He sees the life they could have together, a good and happy life. He realizes that if he sticks with his crew and continues in his criminal ways, there will never be a chance to have what he begins to desire. He realizes it's just too dangerous, and decides to walk away from it all. When he tries to talk it over with "Jem", his words fall on deaf ears. "Jem" refuses to let him walk away, even threatening him if he should turn his back! To "Jem", crime is the only lifestyle! A lifestyle of sin will seem the same to the sinners, as well, even if they don't realize the sins they're committing.

As Christians we face a very similar predicament. We see our sin clearly (or we ought, for how can we so easily ignore the Man on the Cross and not think of what we've done), yet I know that, within my own heart, I often fail to grasp how serious my errors are; how tremendously destructive my trespassing can be. God's forgiveness abounds to us, and we must embrace it daily. But as we plead with God for mercy, let us take the necessary amount of time to realize what it is we've done by our sinful nature. Perhaps we might ask ourselves the following questions (or similar ones) as we prepare for confession before God:

- By my sinful nature, what have I done that has hurt me?

- By my sinful nature, what have I done that has hurt someone else?

- By my sinful nature, what have I done that has hurt the Heart of God?

- By the grace of God, how should I seek forgiveness with myself for what i've done?

- By the grace of God, how should I seek forgiveness with someone else for what i've done?

- By the grace of God, how should I seek forgiveness with God for what i've done?

We're not mobsters or crime-lords, but we behave like them everyday when we let our sins slip past us and don't take into account how much damage they really do. We might not be slapping concrete boots on our friends and throwing them in the river, but what we are doing (go back to the list at the top of this review if you've forgotten) is dealing a spiritual death to the ones we love.

Give thanks to God, for when you come to God and tell Him that you're ready to "walk away" from the sins you've committed, he will not reject you as "Jem" rejected Doug. Quite the opposite, my friends. He will defend you from your accusers, pick you up, show you the way, and say:

"I do not condemn you. ... Go. From now on, sin no more." (John 8:11)

I wish you good and peace - E.T.