I can only call it fate because when I watched The Town recently I completely forgot about the Cine TV Contest that was going on. I mean how lucky can I get? Life has not brought me a ton of luck in recent years but the timing here is actually incredible.
The contest brought forth is to write about a favorite movie that thrills, and well, The Town is exactly that for me. I hadn't watched this in YEARS and man I am so glad I watched this again. Seriously. In recent months and weeks I have written about a lot of excellent movies, but this one here may be my favorite of them all. Source Code is up there for me, but man The Town is built different. I remember really enjoying it years ago as a younger man but I couldn't recall really anything about it.
While I admit, recency bias may be influencing me greatly and it has in the past as well. But also, I feel like being influenced by recency biasedness allows me to be more enthusiastic about films I enjoy. Also, I am pretty certain my love for The Town will remain beyond any sort of recency bias I may have.
The Town is a true pure hybrid between a drama and an amazing action film. It has a little of everything in those genre realms if that makes sense. The casting was truly out of this world too. Every one of those actors and actresses featured in the image above just KILLED their roles. I don't even know how to articulate this.
The bank heists and robberies, cop chases through Boston streets, the gun fights and everything were just thrilling and timed well. When the action came, the action felt truly consequential and vital to the plot. So the action was not only top tier, but The Town didn't have gun fights simply for the sake of entertainment if that makes sense. Just awesome stuff.
I sleep on Ben Affleck way too much. His role as Doug MacRay is like the epitome of a troubled anti-hero. I could feel his inner struggle in a big big way and I just was amazed.
The first couple of dates with Claire and Doug were so complex. Claire was fairly guarded for obvious reasons but, the way Doug lied and sort of answered questions in a non-committal vague way was so interesting. The layers of their conversations was wild. I guess mostly for Doug, but yeah. The love tale between Doug and Claire is infinitely tragic and moving.
Jeremy Renner's character James Coughlin was as memorable as it gets. He plays a super edgy, yet loyal and fairly intelligent character. Doug is more of the like saner, softer side of the anti-hero scale, whereas James is definitely a loose cannon willing to do a lot more heinous crimes than even Doug. Ugh, it stinks because I really wanted James to like, somehow turn a new leaf. When he said he can't do jail again and he'd do 'court in the streets' or something along those lines, I just felt so bad for the guy. He went out tough as nails though, I'll give him that. I even sensed that FBI agent Adam Frawley felt a smidge bad and/or had respect for James after James met his fate. Maybe.
When James met Doug and Claire at their little date, that was INTENSE man. What a scene.
Jon Hamm's character Adam Frawley is ruthless in his own right. Of course he is doing the right thing as an FBI agent, and he does seem like a decent person at the end of the day, but he himself is pretty darn tough and many times came off as unlikeable. Definitely did a great job as the pesky cop though.
Almost every single character in this movie is flawed, and it just makes everyone seem so human. Every character also has some positive traits too. Like, I don't know if I really disliked a single character through and through. Well, maybe one guy, that Irish dude Fergus Colm is just awful. I am so glad Doug finally ended up taking care of him.
Back to Doug, when he told that story to Claire about his mom and dad and stuff like that, and how his mom left (or so he thought), that was deep and dark man. I wanted to give the guy a hug. When Fergus revealed what really happened regarding his mom I just wanted to flip out LOL.
It was pretty cool how Doug looked at his dad with admiration when he visited him in prison. After all this time, Doug still loves his dad. I grew up without a dad and am now a single father myself, that was pretty cool to see. I'm glad Doug left money for his pops.
At the end when Claire spoke to Doug with the cops listening and said 'I really want you to come over' at first my brain could not compute. She definitely had a right to want Doug locked up so while it was unfortunate and annoyed me slightly, it was understandable. But then she said 'if you come over it will be just like one of my sunny days' which referred to her brother's death and how she dislike sunny days. Once my slow brain computed what that meant I was THRILLED!!! Such an elegant, clever way to try to protect Doug and herself. Frankly the entire ending was beautifully done in every way shape and form. When Doug gave her the money and an orange I was so darn happy it's unbelievable. Before Doug's mom's true fate was revealed it was mentioned that his mom went to Florida to like, work with oranges or something AND Doug once told Claire they should move to a town with food in the name. Maybe she'll try to find Doug, maybe she won't. When he said something along the lines of 'I know I'll see you again someday, on this side or the other side.' I wanted to cry man, sheesh. His dad said the same thing regarding jail (I'm pretty sure) and this time I think he meant in this life or the afterlife. Dude, that was too much. Tragically beautiful and wholesome. Bittersweet and just amazing.
Src
There's like, a million lessons that could probably be dissected in The Town. I'm probably not the guy to always accurately break down the deeper meaning in films. All I can do is share my own thoughts really.
One lesson is they say that you will become the average of the people that you associate with and well, I think Doug was starting to see that. While he loved and respected the people around him, he had to make a change. The movie also feels like it touched on like self sabotage if that makes sense. Doug has loads of potential but he kept making poor choices.
Charlestown is one square mile, even though the neighborhood was tiny, so many bad results and bad influences clearly run amok there. Charlestown definitely punches above it's weight class in the crime sense. Doug definitely needed a fresh start in every sense. There were planes several times in this movie and while it's not exactly the most jaw-dropping foreshadowing ever, it works very well in The Town. There is a whole world out there to see. You don't have to get caught up and copy everyone all the time even if you knew them your whole life.
The lessons in this film are really deep, and there's countless subtle and brief moments in it that are thought provoking. I'll probably think of some aspect of this film I want to touch on in a few hours and be upset that I neglected to mention it here but, oh well.
The contest is about thrilling movies and well The Town is one of the most thrilling movies I've ever watched. I'm so glad Doug will have some peace finally. Of course he was a pretty massive criminal but, I also find Doug to be really impressive as a person. He had a super hard life and he deserves peace.
I try to cap my little ratings at 9.5, and save the last .5 for super good movies, with that being said....
I could easily throw this one on and just have it play in the background. I think some more Ben Affleck movies are in my future!
