The Town

Ben Affleck follows up his accomplished directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, with a less successful Boston-set crime drama, The Town. Based on Chuck Hogan's novel, Prince of Thieves, the movie has an uneven tone and a less than convincing plot. Affleck stars as Doug MacRay, who runs a mask-wearing bank-robbing crew in the working-class enclave of Charlestown, just like his father did. During a job, Doug's hot-headed cohort, Jem (Jeremy Renner), takes a pretty young bank manager hostage. Claire (Rebecca Hall) is released unharmed, but Doug tracks her down later, and when she doesn't recognize him without the mask, the two become romantically involved. The screenwriters were wise to eliminate the novel's romantic triangle involving Claire, Doug, and FBI Agent Frawley (Jon Hamm), because Claire and Doug's relationship already strains credulity, but this leaves Hamm with a dully single-minded character. The cast as a whole is stellar, particularly Hall and Renner, but the characterizations are thin. Robbery and chase sequences are loud, violent, and fashionably incoherent. Affleck doesn't show the preparation that goes into these jobs, so we don't get a sense that Doug is any kind of mastermind. The incongruous scope of the action scenes and the sweeping orchestral score give the sense that Affleck is straining for prestige and awards, with material more suited to a gritty little neighborhood crime drama.