I have always wanted to see movie about elite bank robbers who are actually elite. Not elite until the second act of the movie when they make stupid mistakes, involve the wrong people or go psycho for no good reason, but really elite. Like they pull off their robberies with such precision that catching them is almost impossible. Time and time again I go to heist movies and I am disappointed. All the platitudes and assurances that the crew is the best fall at the wayside because they do something really stupid or crazy that gets the whole lot of them pinched or involved in fatal shootouts with whatever A-list driven detective is after them. I’ve wanted this for a long time and I finally have it in the Town. What is really nice is that that is just one part of what the Town delivers and the rest of the film is just as elite as the crew it features.

Co-written, directed and starring (he might have done craft services too) Ben Affleck, the Town follows a crew of bank/armored car robbers who have the FBI breathing down their necks and deal with the complications of taking and releasing a hostage. Affleck plays Doug MacRay, the leader of the crew and a legacy from a line of thieves, who becomes at odds with best friend and surrogate brother Jim (Jeremy Renner) when MacRay begins a relationship with a hostage they took and released during a bank robbery (Rebbecca Hall). MacRay initially just wants to make sure doesn’t have anything to tell the FBI and things develop into more. Meanwhile, Special Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) is getting fed up with this crew slipping through his fingers and starts to tighten his grip.

On paper the set up, which is based on the book Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan, sounds kind of like a bit more hardcore of a meet cute from some kind of high-concept romantic comedy. It isn’t. The characters here are fully realized and the things they do and how the story plays out feels very real and is enormously compelling. The film further eschews genre conventions and cliches for a more realistic look at life as a professional thief and all that entails. There isn’t much glamor here and the action that plays out stays true to life as opposed to something more slick and stylized.

As mentioned above, despite the relationship between MacRay and hostage Claire, the crew never does anything wrong to get themselves pinched. When the FBI starts to make progress on finding them it is through legitimate investigation and police work. That is enormously refreshing to see and makes the tension feel much more intense and the relationships much more real. This isn’t a story about fools and amateurs. Both the criminals and the cops are at the top of their game and watching them play that game out is very engaging and satisfying.

The Town has a lot of turns and story and character development but it also has its share of action. As mentioned above, this action is not over the top or stylized. There are no goofy parkour scenes of fleeing suspects out running the cops doing slick and cool things. The gunplay and chase sequences are grounded and realistic and do not stray into over the top bloodshed. Nothing happens that couldn’t actually happen and I never found myself rolling my eyes. This sense of realism really lends weight and credibility to the whole thing and enriches the experience. It would be hard to invest in the increasingly complex relationships if those moments were split up by ridiculous and over blown action scenes. Affleck, as a director, shows tremendous restraint and has a very good understanding of pacing. He also manages to make realistic fights and chases entertaining and exciting. Part of this comes from the tension he is able to build off the back of the viewer’s deep investment in the characters and part comes from Affleck just flat knowing how to direct and knowing how to direct well.

Certainly this visual and narrative credibility would be all for nothing if the performances weren’t up to snuff but The Town delivers on this front as well. Affleck really shines as MacRay, a man conflicted about what he is doing but is so busy running from his past he never has time to choose a different fork ahead of him. Through Claire he begins to see that life could be better which Affleck handles with an impressive subtlety and thoughtfulness. His chemistry with Claire pops pretty much right away and you find yourself rooting for them even when you realize that what he has done to her is enormously fucked up. Rebbecca Hall’s Claire is a strong woman but isn’t afraid to break down when necessary. She is a person coping with fear and tragedy and finding solace in MacRay feels natural and logical. Hall delivers a performance that hits on all sorts of emotional beats and does so without the audience thinking she is weak or stupid.

Probably the biggest stand outs, however, were Jeremy Renner and Jon Hamm. Renner’s Jim is the sort of unhinged psycho archetype of the gang but Renner doesn’t play him as if he were just some frothing lunatic but rather a man who has long ago decided that his moral compass points south and who isn’t afraid to do what he feels needs to be done. He is the one most likely to kill or resort to violence but Renner makes him a person who has made choices and will do whatever he needs to but is never unhinged just to be unhinged. Lesser actors would have been over-the-top but Renner makes the better choice and goes for an authentic person. Hamm reminds me a lot of Christopher Noth who I have always felt is remarkable for being able to play characters who look similar on paper but who are night and day different to one another. Because his character is a confident and take charge professional in a suit one might assume he is going to do a variation on Don Draper (his character on Mad Men) but what Hamm offers is a driven performance that feels very real but is so different from Draper that one might be excused for not realizing it was the same actor.

Conclusion [10 out of 10]

The Town is not going to offer you the sorts of cheap thrills that an action picture like Takers would but it gives you a look into the world of professional thieves in Boston and all the consequences that go with that. There are multiple layers here that unfold organically as the story progresses and never feel like it was just happening because that is what the story needs but rather what might actually happen in that situation. The performances are great and the direction and writing are equally top notch. I have never had any kind of intense hatred for Ben Affleck and I enjoy him as an actor. Between this film and Gone Baby Gone, however, it would be a hard argument to make that he isn’t a better director than anything else. His skills are very strong and I hope that these two films are the start of a long career for him behind the camera.