The Town (2010 film)

The Town
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ben Affleck
Produced by	Graham King; Basil Iwanyk;
Screenplay by	Peter Craig; Ben Affleck; Aaron Stockard;
Based on	Prince of Thieves; by Chuck Hogan
Starring	Ben Affleck; Rebecca Hall; Jon Hamm; Jeremy Renner; Blake Lively; Titus Welliver; Pete Postlethwaite; Chris Cooper;
Music by	Harry Gregson-Williams; David Buckley;
Cinematography	Robert Elswit
Edited by	Dylan Tichenor
Production; company	Legendary Pictures; GK Films; Thunder Road Pictures;
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	September 8, 2010 (Venice); September 17, 2010 (United States);
Running time	124 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$37 million[2]
Box office	$154 million[3]

The Town is a 2010 American crime thriller film co-written, directed by and starring Ben Affleck, adapted from Chuck Hogan's 2004 novel Prince of Thieves.[4][5] It also stars Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Titus Welliver, Pete Postlethwaite, and Chris Cooper, and follows a group of Boston bank robbers who set out to get one final score by robbing Fenway Park.

The film premiered on September 8, 2010 at the Venice Film Festival before being released in the United States on September 17, 2010. Based on actual events, it received praise from critics for its direction, screenplay, editing and the performances of the cast (particularly Renner) and grossed $154 million worldwide. The film was chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2010, while Renner was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Postlethwaite was posthumously nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Plot

Four lifelong friends from the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown, Douglas "Doug" MacRay, James "Jem" Coughlin, Albert "Gloansy" MacGloan, and Desmond "Dez" Elden, rob a bank. They take the assistant manager, Claire Keesey, hostage, but release her unharmed. When they find out Claire lives in their neighborhood, Doug begins to follow her to find out how much she has told the police, and to make sure that Jem does not eliminate her as a witness. Soon a romance grows between them, which Doug hides from the gang. As they grow closer, Doug tells Claire of his search for his long-lost mother, who he believes went to live with his aunt in Tangerine, Florida. He also recounts his chance to be a professional hockey player which he threw away for a life of crime, following in his father's footsteps. She in turn tells Doug that she saw a tattoo on one of the robbers, and he realizes that she can identify Jem and send them all to prison. He knows that Jem will kill her if he discovers the truth, so in order to discourage her, he advises her to tell the police, and tells her that the authorities will then put her in witness protection and send her to live in another state. His plan works, and she decides not to tell the police.

FBI Agent Adam Frawley surveils the gang and recognizes their ties to local Irish Mob boss Fergus "Fergie" Colm, who has another robbery planned for them. During a visit to his father, Stephen, in prison, Doug reveals his plans to leave Boston and go to Florida. The gang's next robbery in the North End goes awry, and the gang barely escapes. They are brought in and interrogated by Frawley, but he fails to get any confessions and is forced to release them.

Doug asks Claire if she will go away with him, and she agrees. When Frawley learns that Claire quit her job, he wiretaps her phone, and threatens to prosecute her as an accomplice after realizing that she is seeing Doug. Shocked to discover that her lover was one of her assailants, she is forced to cooperate with the FBI and breaks up with him. Meanwhile, Fergie threatens to kill Claire if Doug does not go through with the job, then proceeds to tell Doug how he controlled his father by making his mother an addict, which led to her suicide. Doug gives in but swears that he will kill Fergie if anything happens to Claire.

At Fenway Park, Doug and Jem enter disguised as Boston police officers, steal $3,500,000 in gate cash, and prepare to escape in an ambulance, disguised as paramedics. Krista, Doug's ex-girlfriend and Jem's sister, threatened by Frawley and heartbroken by Doug's going away without her, reveals enough for the FBI to surround Fenway before the gang can get out. The gang is caught in a firefight with FBI SWAT operators, and Dez and Gloansy are killed. Frawley spots Jem and they exchange gunfire. Jem, determined not to go back to prison and out of ammunition, commits suicide by cop by running out of cover with his guns unloaded and is killed. Knowing that Claire is in danger and that he will never escape as long as Fergie is alive, Doug murders Fergie and his bodyguard and calls Claire. Watching from across the street via binoculars, Doug sees that the FBI are with her as she tells him to come over. He, at first, thinks she means to betray him, but she gives a clue verbally, to warn him away. Doug flees, donning an MBTA uniform and escaping on a train. Frawley deduces that Claire tipped off Doug, but doesn't arrest her because her choice of words was circumstantial.

Later, while gardening, Claire finds a buried bag containing the stolen money, a tangerine, and a note from Doug, suggesting that she can make better use of the money than he can, and that they might see each other again. Claire donates the money, in memory of Doug's mother, to refurbish the local ice hockey arena where Doug once played. From the deck of a small house, Doug looks out over the water, forlorn, but seemingly safe in Florida.

Cast

Ben Affleck (right) with Jon Hamm

Ben Affleck as Douglas "Doug" MacRay
Rebecca Hall as Claire Keesey
Jon Hamm as FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley
Jeremy Renner as James "Jem" Coughlin
Blake Lively as Krista "Kris" Coughlin
Chris Cooper as Stephen MacRay
Pete Postlethwaite as Fergus "Fergie" Colm
Slaine as Albert "Gloansy" MacGloan
Owen Burke as Desmond "Dez" Elden
Titus Welliver as Officer Dino Ciampa
Dennis McLaughlin as Rusty
Brian Scannell as Henry
Isaac Bordoy as Alex Colazzo
Jack Neary as Arnold Washton
Edward O'Keefe as Morton Previt
Victor Garber as David

Production

Pre-production

In 2006, director Adrian Lyne brought Chuck Hogan's novel Prince of Thieves to producer Graham King. King in turn showed it to Warner Bros. studio, who agreed to make an adaptation directed by Lyne and written by Sheldon Turner.[6] Given screenwriting attempts by Turner, Hogan himself and screenwriter Peter Craig did not manage to build a script that fit Warner's requirement for a standard two-hour length movie with a $37 million budget.[7] By 2008, The Town was decided as the title and Ben Affleck, fresh off his directorial debut in Gone Baby Gone, was brought in to serve as star, director and co-writer.[8] Affleck wanted to direct a movie "I personally researched and understood", inviting high school classmate Aaron Stockard to work with him on the script, and travelling to Boston to research on the subject. While Affleck had grown up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he barely knew the harsh inner-city environment of Charlestown. Affleck and Stockard conducted many interviews with the Charlestown community, as well as the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force in Boston.[7] Later the film's actors also researched within the community to make for more believable characters and performances. Charlestown locals also joined the cast, mostly as extras.[9]

Filming

The exterior of a former MassBank branch in Melrose, Massachusetts, was used for the main robbery of the film.

Filming began in late August 2009 in Boston.[10][11] The former MASSBank branch located in Melrose, Massachusetts, was used as the location for the first robbery of the film, taking on the name Cambridge Merchants Bank[12] (the exterior shots, however, are of Cambridge Savings Bank in Harvard Square). Filming also took place at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, for casino scenes,[13] Massachusetts Correctional Institution – Cedar Junction in Walpole, Massachusetts, for use of their visiting room, and at Anderson Regional Transportation Center in Woburn, Massachusetts, for the ending Amtrak scenes.

Release

The Town was shown at the Venice Film Festival and premiered at Boston's Fenway Park. The film was released in the United States on September 17, 2010.

Box office

The film took #1 at the box office during its opening weekend, taking in $23.8 million.[14] The Town grossed $92.1 million in the United States and Canada with an additional $61.8 million in other territories for a total of $154 million worldwide on a production budget of $37 million.[15][3]

Home media

The film was released on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on December 17, 2010. Both versions include special features and an audio commentary including a look at Affleck as a director and actor. The extended/unrated version is a Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy bundle which includes 28 minutes of additional footage, taking the runtime to over 153 minutes.[16]

On March 6, 2011, the three-disc The Town: Ultimate Collector's Edition DVD/Blu-ray set was released. This set includes the previously released theatrical and extended cut Blu-ray disc as well as a second Blu-ray disc and a DVD which feature a new extended cut with an alternate, darker ending.[17]

2012 re-release

On February 5, 2012, to promote the upcoming The Town: Ultimate Collector's Edition set, the AMC Loews Boston Common theater hosted an "exclusive engagement" of The Town (Take 2), wherein three showings of the film were shown with the alternate ending featured in the new home media release. Immediately preceding each screening, a vice president from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment thanked all those in attendance, including Titus Welliver (Dino Ciampa), Dennis McLaughlin (Rusty), and Affleck's mother, for coming out and supporting director Affleck's "preferred" version of the film, leading to a short, prerecorded introduction by Affleck himself. Earlier that day, the intersection of Tremont and Avery streets was temporarily renamed "The Town Take 2 Place" in a small ceremony, attended by Welliver and Boston city officials.[18]

Reception

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 93% based on 227 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Tense, smartly written, and wonderfully cast, The Town proves that Ben Affleck has rediscovered his muse—and that he's a director to be reckoned with."[19] Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[20] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[21]

Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, praising Renner's performance and Affleck's direction.[22] In his review for The New York Times, A. O. Scott commented on the opening heist, "That sequence, like most of the other action set pieces in the film, is lean, brutal and efficient, and evidence of Mr. Affleck's skill and self-confidence as a director."[23] Xan Brooks, in The Guardian, wrote that the action sequences were "sharply orchestrated" but added "it's a bogus, bull-headed enterprise all the same; a film that leaves no cliche untrampled."[24] Justin Chang wrote in Variety that the action scenes strike "an ideal balance between kineticism and clarity" aided by cinematographer Robert Elswit and film editor Dylan Tichenor.[25] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film an A+, noting that he found the film incredibly similar to Michael Mann's Heat, which he described as "one of [his] favorite movies of all time."[26] The reviewers at Spill.com also praised one of the shootout scenes, saying "It is surely the best shootout scene we have seen in decades."[27] Writing in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Laremy Lengel titled his review "The Town Works Best if You Avoid the Heat," also referencing Mann's film.[28]

As a Boston-based crime drama, the film forms part of a "crime-movie subgenre" typically marked by "flavorsome accents, pungent atmosphere and fatalistic undertow", according to Chang. Within that subgenre, which includes The Boondock Saints, The Departed, Mystic River and Affleck's Gone Baby Gone, The Town is more of a straightforward crime-procedural and has a more optimistic outlook.[25]

Accolades

Jon Hamm and Ben Affleck chat on the set in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Award	Category	Subject	Result
National Board of Review	Top Ten Films		Won
National Board of Review	Best Acting by an Ensemble Cast		Won
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award	Best Film		Nominated
	Best Cast		Nominated
	Best Screenplay	Ben Affleck, Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard	Nominated
	Best Action Film		Nominated
	Best Supporting Actor	Jeremy Renner	Nominated
Academy Award	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated
Golden Globe Award	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated
Screen Actors Guild Award	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated
Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated
National Society of Film Critics	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated
St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated
San Diego Film Critics Society	Best Supporting Actor		Nominated
San Diego Film Critics Society	Best Supporting Actress	Blake Lively	Nominated
Satellite Award	Best Supporting Actor	Jeremy Renner	Nominated
	Best Adapted Screenplay	Peter Craig	Nominated
		Aaron Stockard	Nominated
		Ben Affleck	Nominated
	Best Director	Ben Affleck	Nominated
	Best Editing	Dylan Tichenor	Nominated
Producers Guild of America	Best Film		Nominated
BAFTA Award	Best Supporting Actor	Pete Postlethwaite (posthumous)	Nominated

Factual accuracy

A voice in the trailer of the film says: "There are over 300 bank robberies in Boston every year. Most of these professionals live in a 1-square-mile neighborhood called Charlestown." In fact, there were 23 reported bank robberies in the entire state of Massachusetts in the first quarter of 2010, compared with 49 in Illinois and 136 in California, according to the FBI.[29]

The film ends with a written disclaimer: "Charlestown's reputation as a breeding ground for armed robbers is authentic. However, this film all but ignores the great majority of the residents of Charlestown, past and present, who are the same good and true people found most anywhere,"[30] to whom the film is dedicated.

According to a September 2010 article in The Boston Globe, Charlestown was once known as an area where bank robbers were concentrated, but has not been since the mid-1990s, and the subject has been a sore point for "Townies". Now much of the neighborhood has been gentrified. The paper reported there is some sense of rivalry between Townies, people who lived in the historically Irish-Catholic neighborhood for decades, and "Toonies", largely white-collar workers who arrived with gentrification, but most of that has died down.[29][31] The film makes reference to the definition of "Toonies" during one of Doug and Claire's dates.

In the early 1990s, an increase in the number of bank and armored car robberies by Townies focused attention on Charlestown. In one heist in Hudson, New Hampshire, two guards were killed, and is alluded to in the film - during a scene where Agent Frawley is briefing his task force, he mentions that Doug's father is serving life for a notorious robbery in Nashua. According to Frawley, the elder MacRay hijacked a "bread truck" (armored car) up to New Hampshire, and when one of the guards saw his face, he executed both of them with their own weapons. Frawley notes that this incident led to the passing of regulations prohibiting the driver from leaving the cab even if his partner is being held at gunpoint. Charles Hogan got the idea for his novel, on which the film is based, in 1995. "It was just so remarkable that this one very small community was the focus for bank robbers," he said, but he was very aware that crime was only one part of the community, and he did not want to make all residents of the neighborhood look like criminals.[32]

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