The Town (2010) Review

The Town is one of the strongest American heist films of the 2010s. Seen twice. The 8 rating is what it earns. Ben Affleck directing his second feature after Gone Baby Gone (2007). Affleck stars as Doug MacRay. Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall, Blake Lively, Pete Postlethwaite, and Chris Cooper in the substantial supporting ensemble. Based on Chuck Hogan’s 2004 novel Prince of Thieves. Set in Charlestown, the Boston neighborhood with the highest per capita rate of armed robberies in America. Made approximately $154 million on a $37 million budget.

Jeremy Renner earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

The Setup

Charlestown, Boston. Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) leads a four-man crew that specializes in armored car and bank robberies. Doug, Jem Coughlin (Jeremy Renner), Albert “Gloansy” MacGloan (Slaine), and Desmond “Dez” Elden (Owen Burke) have been operating together for years. The crew is professional. They wear identical disguises during operations. They time their movements precisely. They have never been caught.

The opening robbery takes a bank manager named Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) hostage briefly. The crew releases her unharmed. Jem becomes concerned that Claire might be able to identify them. He suggests killing her preemptively. Doug refuses. Doug decides to follow Claire instead to assess what she remembers. He encounters her at a laundromat. She doesn’t recognize him. They begin a relationship.

FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) is leading the investigation of the crew. He’s been tracking Charlestown criminal organizations for years. He identifies Doug’s crew as the likely perpetrators of the bank robbery and several previous robberies. He focuses his investigation on the personal connections among the crew members. The film documents the parallel storylines: Doug’s developing relationship with Claire, the crew’s continued operations, and Frawley’s investigation.

The Charlestown Setting

Charlestown is a specific Boston neighborhood with a documented criminal history. The neighborhood had the highest per capita rate of armed robberies in America for several decades. The film treats this fact as structural foundation instead of as colorful background. Doug’s crew operates within a community where armored car robbery is an established occupational tradition. Multiple Charlestown families have been involved in the criminal trade across generations.

The film draws on substantial Boston cultural specificity. The accents. The Catholic parish references. The family connections that operate across criminal and legitimate lives at once. The “Townie” code of silence that protects criminals from outside investigation. The economic reality of Charlestown as a working-class neighborhood that’s produced a specific criminal subculture as an alternative to limited economic opportunity. The cultural specificity supports the dramatic stakes.

The actual Charlestown was undergoing substantial gentrification at the time of the film’s release. The neighborhood that had produced the documented robbery tradition was being transformed by Boston’s broader economic changes. The film documents Charlestown at a specific historical moment. The criminal tradition the film depicts had already been declining by 2010. The film operates partly as record of a Boston that was disappearing.

The Ben Affleck Direction

Ben Affleck directed The Town as his second feature after Gone Baby Gone (2007). Both films were set in Boston and adapted from novels with Boston settings. The combination established Affleck as a major American director and as a specialist in Boston-set material. He continued the approach with Argo (2012), which won Best Picture.

The direction integrates conventional commercial filmmaking with substantial location specificity. The robbery sequences operate at high action register. The character scenes operate at substantial dramatic restraint. The transitions between registers are managed without obvious seams. Affleck demonstrates the kind of directorial discipline that his contemporary acting reputation hadn’t suggested. The Town is the proof that Affleck became a serious filmmaker instead of just a star who occasionally directed.

The location filming in actual Charlestown is essential. Affleck shot in real neighborhood locations including Doyle’s Cafe, the Warren Tavern, and the Boston Garden during a Bruins playoff game. The Fenway Park sequence required substantial cooperation from the Red Sox organization. The actual Boston locations provide authenticity that constructed sets couldn’t have replicated. The location work is one of the production’s signature elements.

The Jeremy Renner Performance

Jeremy Renner plays Jem Coughlin with the volatility the role requires. Jem is Doug’s closest friend and the crew’s most dangerous member. He served prison time for killing a man as a young adult. The killing protected Doug’s brother. The favor created an obligation Doug cannot easily discharge. Jem is also unstable. He cannot control his violence. He nearly destroys the crew through bad decisions made in moments of crisis.

Renner earned the Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the performance. The nomination was earned. Renner plays Jem at a register that conveys both genuine danger and the brotherhood that keeps Doug loyal to him despite the danger. The character is sympathetic and frightening at the same time. Renner doesn’t signal between the two states. He plays them as integrated personality.

The Renner career trajectory across the period made the Jem casting specifically meaningful. He’d played similarly volatile characters in The Hurt Locker (2008), which earned him a Best Actor nomination. He moved into Marvel Cinematic Universe work as Hawkeye after The Town. The dramatic capability he demonstrated in The Town hasn’t been consistently used in his subsequent commercial career. The performance remains one of his strongest individual roles.

The Jon Hamm Performance

Jon Hamm plays FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley as professional investigator instead of as theatrical antagonist. Frawley is intelligent. Frawley is patient. Frawley is also frustrated with the limitations imposed on his work by Charlestown’s culture of silence and by the legal system’s evidentiary requirements. Hamm plays the frustration without overplaying it. Frawley is a man doing routine work in a difficult environment.

The performance was Hamm’s most significant film role at the time of release. He had been operating in television through Mad Men (2007-2015), which had established his dramatic capability. The Town was his transition into substantial film work. Subsequent productions including Bridesmaids (2011), Million Dollar Arm (2014), and various others built on the Town foundation. Hamm has had a substantial film career since but has never quite escaped the Mad Men typecasting. The Town remains one of his strongest individual film performances.

The Frawley character is one of the film’s quieter achievements. Most heist films treat law enforcement as antagonistic to the audience’s investment in the criminal protagonists. The Town allows the audience to engage with Frawley as a legitimate professional doing legitimate work. Frawley isn’t corrupt. Frawley isn’t incompetent. Frawley is doing the job the institution pays him to do. The audience can root for Doug’s escape without dismissing Frawley as obstacle. The dual sympathy is the film’s structural achievement.

The Rebecca Hall Performance

Rebecca Hall plays Claire Keesey as the woman whose hostage experience triggers the entire personal storyline. Claire is intelligent. She’s also damaged by the experience. She doesn’t initially recognize Doug as one of her captors. She begins a relationship with him while still processing the trauma. The film documents the relationship’s development through Claire’s perspective as much as through Doug’s.

The performance is one of the film’s quieter strengths. Hall plays Claire as a woman trying to manage trauma she hasn’t fully named. She seeks therapy. She participates in survivor support groups. She also forms a connection with Doug because Doug is one of the few people who can listen to her experiences without flinching or judging. The irony is that Doug can listen because Doug was the cause of the experience. The dramatic structure depends on Hall making Claire’s investment in Doug emotionally credible. She does.

Hall has had a substantial subsequent career including Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Iron Man 3 (2013), The Gift (2015), Christine (2016), and various other productions. The Town role is one of her stronger early American film performances. The character requires considerable nuance. The performance delivers it.

The Robbery Sequences

The film contains three major robbery sequences. The opening bank robbery establishes the crew’s professionalism and introduces Claire as hostage. The mid-film armored car robbery escalates the stakes by introducing armed civilian resistance. The closing Fenway Park robbery is the film’s largest set piece. Each robbery is staged with tactical specificity and shot for clarity instead of for stylistic flourish.

The Fenway Park sequence is the film’s signature set piece. The crew robs the Red Sox cash count room during a playoff game. The setting allows the film to incorporate Boston cultural iconography while staging an extended action sequence. The Boston Red Sox organization cooperated with the production. Affleck used the actual ballpark during an actual game day. The verisimilitude is exceptional. The sequence operates at the level of the major bank robbery sequences in films like Heat (1995). The Town doesn’t surpass Heat. The Town meets the standard.

The robbery choreography is tactically credible. The crew uses period-correct weapons and equipment. They communicate in established patterns. They execute pre-planned escape routes. The work is professional instead of theatrical. The audience receives the robberies as documented procedures instead of as cinematic spectacles. The choice is consistent with the film’s broader register.

The Chris Cooper and Pete Postlethwaite Performances

Chris Cooper appears in a single scene as Stephen MacRay, Doug’s incarcerated father. The scene runs approximately ten minutes. Cooper communicates twenty years of Stephen’s institutional life through dialogue and physical work. The performance is one of the strongest single-scene performances in 2010s cinema. Cooper has been doing this kind of work across his entire career. The Town scene is one of his cleanest examples.

Pete Postlethwaite plays Fergus “Fergie” Colm, the Charlestown florist who handles criminal logistics for the local trade. Postlethwaite was 64 during filming and was suffering from cancer. He died in January 2011, approximately five months after the film’s release. The Town was one of his final roles. The performance is small but specific. Fergie is the criminal middleman who connects local operators to larger institutional structures. Postlethwaite plays him with appropriate weight.

The two supporting performances bracket the film’s institutional context. Cooper represents the previous generation of Charlestown criminals who paid with their freedom for the trade they conducted. Postlethwaite represents the current institutional infrastructure that continues despite individual fates. Doug operates between these two reference points. The supporting work supports the structural argument.

The Ending

The Fenway Park robbery goes wrong. The crew is intercepted by FBI agents during the escape. Jem dies in the firefight. Gloansy dies in the firefight. Dez dies in the firefight. Doug survives and escapes to Florida with the money. Claire knows what he is. He visits her one final time before disappearing. She doesn’t call the FBI. He leaves the money he’d set aside for her at his mother’s old house.

The closing voice-over is Doug’s. He reflects on what he’s lost and what he’s gained. He’s lost his crew, his neighborhood, and his ability to return to either. He’s gained his freedom and a future without criminal commitments. The voice-over operates as ambiguous closure. Doug has survived. Doug has also been exiled. The film doesn’t commit to whether the exchange has been worthwhile. The audience supplies the moral judgment.

The ending is consistent with the film’s broader approach. Most heist films end with capture or with successful escape. The Town ends with both. The crew is captured (and killed). Doug escapes. The two outcomes coexist within the single ending. The combination produces specific dramatic weight that conventional endings couldn’t have produced. The choice is the film’s structural payoff.

Craft: One Of The Strongest American Heist Films Of The 2010s

Is The Town worth watching?

An 8. The Town is one of the strongest American heist films of the 2010s. Ben Affleck directing and starring. Jeremy Renner in the Academy Award-nominated supporting role. Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall, Chris Cooper, Pete Postlethwaite in the ensemble. Charlestown, Boston as documented criminal subculture instead of as colorful background. The film established Affleck as a major American director.

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