The Town

Released: 2010
Drama
Starring: Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm
Director: Ben Affleck
Running Time: 125 minutes


The breakdown:
This movie was adapted from Chuck Hogan's Novel titled Prince of Thieves.
From the movie, apparently, Charlestown, Massachusetts, is the best breeding ground in the country for thieves and bank robbers.  I'm not going to guess why this is the case, but it's one of the first title cards that pops up on the movie.

The story is about 4 bank robbers.  3 don't mind being criminals, but Affleck is trying to get out of the criminal life after he falls in love with one of their hostages.  During their last bank robbery Renner takes a hostage, keeps her blindfolded and then lets her out of the van after they safely get away from the cops.  Affleck wants to leave town and have the woman they took hostage never find out what they/he did, but she is working with the FBI to help catch them.  The plot thickens when Affleck's character announces he's going to leave but Renner says he can't.  Affleck slept with Renner's stripper sister for years, and Renner feels Affleck is the father of her daughter, though, I don't think that's the case at all. 
The movie's about ties that bind, loyalty, dishonesty, and family.  Affleck certainly left the movie too long and it had a hard time keeping my attention.  I think the story was good, but maybe Affleck's directing had something to do with the slowness of the film.  I also had a problem with the characters heavy, if not overdone, Boston accents.  I realize they want to sound authentic, but if I have to rewind a scene 3 times to try to understand one sentence and I still don't hear it, you've done something wrong.  If you like movies where you root for the bad guys, this is the one for you.

I gave it 3 ticket stubs out of 5 for a solid story that sometimes lost its way through bad editing.