Is 'The Town' a triumph?

In The Town, star/co-writer/director Ben Affleck plays a down-on-his-luck bank robber in Boston's rough Charlestown neighborhood who's desperate to keep his crew together, particularly his unstable friend Jem (The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner). But when he falls in love with one of his victims (Rebecca Hall) — and has to dodge an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) — things get complicated. What do critics think of Affleck's new directorial effort (based on Chuck Hogan's novel Prince of Thieves)? (Watch the trailer for The Town)

It's better than solid: The resurrection of Ben Affleck's career continues apace, says Chris Vognar in The Dallas Morning News. The Town is a "vivid genre piece" in which "the sense of place leaps off the screen." The performances are "fully lived-in" and the action scenes have "speed and heft."

"The Town"

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

It's a simple pleasure: The Town is a "well-made crime procedural," says Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. Affleck was clearly going for something more, however, and perhaps "the mechanics of movie crime got in the way of [his] higher ambitions." While Jem is an "intriguing character," the film's paint-by-numbers approach to crime scenes lessens its emotional appeal.

"The Town"

Affleck should have stayed behind the camera: The movie has some problems: It's "aggressively regional," for instance, "with establishing shots of the Bunker Hill monument every 15 minutes." But its fatal flaw, says Dana Stevens at Slate, is Affleck's casting of himself as "a criminal mastermind, a bank-robbing prodigy with a crack team of thugs at his command." He's "congenial," but "let's not kid ourselves about his acting."

"Boston. Boston. Boston. Ben Affleck"