The Town marks the directorial follow up for actor Ben Affleck following the success of his 2007 directorial debut Gone Baby Gone, the story here is that Affleck plays a Boston criminal who along with his friend played by The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner and two others, rob armoured cars and hold up banks, but on their last heist they take a young woman played by Rebecca Hall hostage, who Affleck also starts having affections for.
The Town is actually a pretty solid film all around, held together extremely well by Affleck's steady hand at the helm, most action pictures these days over edit their action scenes to the point where it's hard to know who everyone is, where they are or who their fighting against, that problem is not here, you always get a sense of who the cops are, who the robbers are and what they're actually robbing and boy is that a huge relief and contrast to see.
As for the rest of the film, well as I said it's pretty damn solid, with the other main performers (Renner, Jon Hamm and Rebecca Hall) up to the task but my favourite performance is by the late Pete Posthelthwaite as the Flower Shop Owner, speaking his lines in an Irish accent crossed with a wicked tongue, how sad that this should be his final role but at least he was rightly awarded with a posthumous nomination at this year's BAFTA awards.
But again I have to come back to Affleck's direction, as it is really something special, almost every shot has a sense of detail in it down to the city streets, the corner shops in the background, the beautiful aerial shots that are scattered throughout the film, it's almost like a principal character in and of itself, it is so refreshing to see direction like this and not the banging and clanging and general incoherence we see from most movies these days.
All in all, a most solid action picture that's easily worth your time and money, 4 out of 5.
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