""The Town"" begins with the tried and true Hollywood staple of the bank robbery scene, and much like a Bruce Springsteen concert, all the old hits are there. You have the meticulous band of thieves monitoring the entrance, bursting violently into the bank, yelling at customers and staff to get down on the floor. The calm, collected leader reminds everybody that their money is insured and they have no incentive to fight back. The hot-headed member grabs the most attractive woman on the bank's staff and forces her to open the vault. The bandits grab all the cash they can handle, take the attractive bank employee hostage and make their getaway.
It's a scene the world has seen dozens, possibly hundreds of times before in movies. But it's also executed with absolute cinematic perfection, something very few heist films can claim.
That is what keeps ""The Town,"" the sophomore directorial effort of Ben Affleck, from collapsing under the weight of its clichéd storyline. The plot is very simple: Bandit robs bank. Cops chase bandit. Bandit tries to get out of the game. Bandit goes out for one last score. It's about as original as a ham sandwich, but it's a delicious ham sandwich.
Affleck has followed up his excellently crafted debut, ""Gone Baby Gone,"" with an even more finely tuned follow-up. And while the entire movie isn't quite as flawless as the opening sequence, the former Mr. J-Lo is undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with behind the camera.
Most notably Affleck exhibits a knack for setting. More than any one character or any nail-biting heist, ""The Town"" is about its title locale, the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. The movie bills Charlestown as the bank robbery capital of the world, but what is more important is Affleck's depiction of the neighborhood as an inescapable blue collar purgatory.
Affleck's Charlestown is a place where the working class are forced to turn to thievery or dealing Oxycodone in order to make ends meet, all while watching yuppies encroach on their home turf. Thankfully Affleck doesn't fall into the trap he found in ""Gone Baby Gone,"" where he haphazardly threw in images of abject poverty to the point of overkill. Instead, he focuses on the characters' dueling conflict between the longing desire to leave for greener pastures and the urge to preserve one's childhood home.
Nowhere is that conflict better exhibited than the relationship between the two noteworthy bandits from the opening scene. Affleck himself plays the calm, collected brains of the quartet, someone who is clearly too smart to stay confined but unable to break free of the Charlestown chains. Meanwhile, Jeremy Renner of ""The Hurt Locker"" fits nicely into the part of the hot-headed best friend who has simply put too much of his life into Charlestown to ever think of abandoning his home. Both roles, much like the plot, have seen countless prior renditions, but Affleck and Renner have enough screen presence to make this an irrelevant detail. Rebecca Hall adds additional talent in her role as the shell-shocked bank employee that serves as Affleck's love interest, as does Blake Lively as his former flame. Jon Hamm rounds out the ensemble well with a gleefully unlikeable performance as the lead FBI agent.
Unfortunately, the setting does manage to become overbearing at points. The film's third act centers on a robbery of Fenway Park, just to make sure everybody remembers the movie is set in Boston–as if the accents, Red Sox attire and countless shots of the Zakim Bridge weren't enough of a hint.
But for the most part, ""The Town"" avoids these missteps, instead perfectly matching the steps of its predecessors. It may be the exact same concoction, but it's crafted with choice ingredients, and that's just enough to ensure the continued success of the revived Affleck brand.
