The previews to The Town made me think; Hey! The Departed II. My instincts, in this case, (as opposed to when I decided it wise to pay $9 to see The Time Travelers Wife) were correct. The Town is The Departed Light. It isn’t bad, everyone in it is decent but there is pretty much no character development. You don’t like anyone. You don’t hate anyone. On a positive note, you don’t really notice this until you stop to think about it later and thinking about this movie later really isn’t necessary.
The Town moves along, guns are fired, crimes are committed but there is very little attempt to show how the crimes are planned. Nor is the environment that leads the particular neighborhood to lead the nation in armed robbers explored in anything but a cursory manner. Sure, there is a diagram and a few scenes and sentences on the ”hows” but nothing that gives any insight. The Irish hooligans grab their machine guns, boost a car and head to the bank. If that is how it is done then our banks need to really rethink their security practices and maybe get some third graders to draw up some new procedures. The film gives the impression of being written by people who know what goes on in the Charleston section of Boston and assume everyone else must too.
We do not. And maybe that is just me giving them a pass writing that. Maybe it was laziness.
This movie isn’t awful, it just isn’t much. There is lots of gunfire but not much of anything else. It is pretty unfair to compare it to a Scorcese movie. Ben Affleck doesn’t embarrass himself directing this (although maybe he and his co-WRITERS DO). There are tons of worst heist movies out there. In fact they all tend to be worse than this these days. But not completely sucking shouldn’t be considered as praise.
This is one of those films that is difficult to really say much about. The actors I am familiar with in the film are usually decent, excepting the sometimes wooden Affleck (who also occasionally pulls a good performance out of the air). They just don’t have much to do here aside from being stereotypes. How about getting a little more into the Irish robber who doesn’t drink part of this? How about the florist who seems to run things? I say “seems to” because it is not explored in any way at all. There were lots of roads to take in this basic plot. They just didn’t bother to drive down them.
The Town moves along, guns are fired, crimes are committed but there is very little attempt to show how the crimes are planned. Nor is the environment that leads the particular neighborhood to lead the nation in armed robbers explored in anything but a cursory manner. Sure, there is a diagram and a few scenes and sentences on the ”hows” but nothing that gives any insight. The Irish hooligans grab their machine guns, boost a car and head to the bank. If that is how it is done then our banks need to really rethink their security practices and maybe get some third graders to draw up some new procedures. The film gives the impression of being written by people who know what goes on in the Charleston section of Boston and assume everyone else must too.
We do not. And maybe that is just me giving them a pass writing that. Maybe it was laziness.
This movie isn’t awful, it just isn’t much. There is lots of gunfire but not much of anything else. It is pretty unfair to compare it to a Scorcese movie. Ben Affleck doesn’t embarrass himself directing this (although maybe he and his co-WRITERS DO). There are tons of worst heist movies out there. In fact they all tend to be worse than this these days. But not completely sucking shouldn’t be considered as praise.
This is one of those films that is difficult to really say much about. The actors I am familiar with in the film are usually decent, excepting the sometimes wooden Affleck (who also occasionally pulls a good performance out of the air). They just don’t have much to do here aside from being stereotypes. How about getting a little more into the Irish robber who doesn’t drink part of this? How about the florist who seems to run things? I say “seems to” because it is not explored in any way at all. There were lots of roads to take in this basic plot. They just didn’t bother to drive down them.
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