Well, everyone seems to be loving Ben Affleck's sophomore directorial project, and that includes my guest reviewer, my husband, Alan. Yes, this is nepotism at its worst, but, hey, he's much smarter than I am, so you're actually getting a better review than I could give you! Here's what Alan had to say about "The Town."

 

"The Town" is a gritty, cool action-packed bank robbery caper film, well-directed and co-written by Ben Affleck. The premise is the somewhat inflated conceit that this small section of Boston produces an unusual abundance of bank heists and produces the thieves who execute them. This movie has a really excellent cast: Chris Cooper, Pete Postlewhaite and rising star Jeremy Renner (from last year's Best Picture Oscar winner "The Hurt Locker") as the trigger-happy sociopath of the group. Ben Affleck and Jon Hamm, as crook and cop respectively, echo DeNiro and Pacino in "Heat" and are both fine. Hamm, especially seems to be having a good time, being able to shed his "Mad Men" guise and wave a gun around.

 

Director Affleck is very generous with his actors and continues to show the skills he displayed in his directorial debut "Gone Baby Gone." After being the butt of jokes for his acting, film choices and love life for years, he's now being compared to Clint Eastwood for demonstrating simultaneous skills of writing, directing and acting. Co-Writers Affleck, Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard give us funny, profane, terse dialogue that, despite the sometimes hard to understand Boston dialects, crackles along.  The whole film has a realistic feel, except, of course, for the studios' ridiculous censoring of smoking in movies.  Yes, I believe this crew of unshaven, tattooed thugs, who have been in and out of prison most of their lives, NEVER light up.  Sure.

Well, everyone seems to be loving Ben Affleck's sophomore directorial project, and that includes my guest reviewer, my husband, Alan. Yes, this is nepotism at its worst, but, hey, he's much smarter than I am, so you're actually getting a better review than I could give you! Here's what Alan had to say about "The Town."

 

"The Town" is a gritty, cool action-packed bank robbery caper film, well-directed and co-written by Ben Affleck. The premise is the somewhat inflated conceit that this small section of Boston produces an unusual abundance of bank heists and produces the thieves who execute them. This movie has a really excellent cast: Chris Cooper, Pete Postlewhaite and rising star Jeremy Renner (from last year's Best Picture Oscar winner "The Hurt Locker") as the trigger-happy sociopath of the group. Ben Affleck and Jon Hamm, as crook and cop respectively, echo DeNiro and Pacino in "Heat" and are both fine. Hamm, especially seems to be having a good time, being able to shed his "Mad Men" guise and wave a gun around.

 

Director Affleck is very generous with his actors and continues to show the skills he displayed in his directorial debut "Gone Baby Gone." After being the butt of jokes for his acting, film choices and love life for years, he's now being compared to Clint Eastwood for demonstrating simultaneous skills of writing, directing and acting. Co-Writers Affleck, Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard give us funny, profane, terse dialogue that, despite the sometimes hard to understand Boston dialects, crackles along.  The whole film has a realistic feel, except, of course, for the studios' ridiculous censoring of smoking in movies.  Yes, I believe this crew of unshaven, tattooed thugs, who have been in and out of prison most of their lives, NEVER light up.  Sure.