‘The Town’ Reviews: Gritty Masterpiece with Oscar Potential
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Ben Affleck is making a comeback to the silver screen with “The Town,” which he directed and stars in. More than that, Affleck is also getting critics talking about the film’s Oscar potential.
The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival the other day and, perhaps not surprising, is already getting impressively positive reviews, with Entertainment Weekly even saying it stands great chances of being a strong Oscar contender.
Reviewers say “The Town” is both superbly made and boasting memorable performances by all the members of the cast, but specifically Jon Hamm as an FBI agent and Jeremy Renner as a twisted criminal.
ScreenCrave summed up most early reviews of the film and, by the looks of them, Affleck has a sure winner on his hands, both on the awards circuit and with audiences.
“This new soulful shoot-em-up, ‘The Town,’ plays it straighter than a pool cue, offering the sort of solid, proficiently written cops ‘n’ robbers yarn that is the stuff of a thousand ‘Bluffer’s Guide to Moviemaking’ tomes,” Time Out London says of the story.
While the story in the film may be too by the book to impress all moviegoers, the way in which it’s told, the characters that populate it and how Affleck makes it come to life surely do so.
“Ben Affleck is, at heart, an extremely conventional storyteller. Largely successful, impressively acted, impeccably shot by Robert ‘There Will Be Blood’ Elswit, and it tells its story with an impressive eye for what makes Boston special,” HitFix writes.
“I love filmmaking about a specific place, where your location is a character just like anyone onscreen, and Affleck’s Boston is impressively rendered as a real place,” the review reads.
Other characters that moviegoers will probably take with them after watching “The Town,” aside from Boston, are Jeremy Renner’s loose-cannon criminal and Jon Hamm’s righteous FBI agent.
Overall, even with its flaws, “The Town” proves Ben Affleck was not born to be a one-hit director, bringing to life a gritty story punctuated by sarcasm and amazing action scenes.
“The film, which allows its flawed hero an ending he perhaps doesn’t deserve, has a good mix of moments recalling a Bostonian version of The Wire and the car chases and gun fights of more orthodox thrillers. It should help Affleck on his way as an actor/director of some note,” This Is London writes.
“The Town” is out in US theaters on September 17. Below is a trailer for it, enjoy.
I grew up 10 minutes north of Charlestown, in Lynn, MA aka Sin City! I naturual was anxious to see this movie, so low and behold 12.01 am first showing to the public in the Boston area, I was there! place was jammed not 1 empty seet. This movie had the whole adiance captivated, I felt as if I was watching 4 of my own friends I had grown up with. This movie depicted what it is to be a serious white boy from inner city Boston to a T, even exploited the huge, Oxy problem in the area! I say this being from a town full of drug store cowboys, Townies,= Banks, Lynn= drugstores, this movie was not forced like the departed, Ben outdid himself, and payed ommige to all the crazy white boys, from Boston! Hands down best Boston movie ever!!! I am heading back to the second showin at 12.05 Rever, MA that good 12.01am and then 12.05pm first 2 showing! That good, must see!
I read the book and although many scenes in the movie played very different from what happened in the book but I thought they did a fantastic job depicting the characters as Chuck Hogan created them in the book. In addition the film complemented the book in such a great way I think it made the story even better and the alternative ending was great. Although, I would have liked Jem’s and Dez’s deaths to have played out with the original grenade seen and not to have been changed overall I would have given the film 2 thumbs up.
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