Sanders- The Town

The movie, The Town, describes a group of very successful bank robbers. It is depicted from the start by Ben Affleck’s character and three other bank robbers.  The movie opens with a bank robbery where the robbers make a mistake by taking Rebecca Hall’s character (Claire) hostage. After they let her go they are afraid she will go to the FBI, so Affleck’s character (Doug) befriends her to try and get information about the hostage from her. She begins to trust him and confides in him about the robbery, how she has gone to the FBI and is scared for her life. Doug, however, begins to fall in love with her and is not as worried about getting caught by the FBI as he is about getting caught dating Claire by the other bank robbers. From start to finish, the movie is exciting. With such an amazing cast including Ben Affleck (who starred in, wrote and directed the movie), John Hamm (FBI agent determined to catch Ben Affleck and his gang of bank robbers), Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, and even Blake Lively, the movie is an absolute success. Affleck’s character, Doug, is by far the one the audience is pulling for the whole time. Hamm’s character, the FBI agent, is the one we don’t want to catch him. While Doug is a criminal, he is made loveable and kindhearted. The editing of the film is fast paced; I was kept on the edge of my seat the whole time.  Also there were very quick shots, which proved to be very beneficial to the action scenes (which were pretty long- there were two major action scenes). When returning to the more low-key non action shots, they were not as quick and exciting. This worked for these shots, which were fairly standard and uneventful but pertinent to the overall storyline. All in all, the movie was amazing, keeping you engaged and rooting for Claire and Doug the whole time. Ben Affleck does a great writing, directing and acting job (A character unlike any he has played before). Hopefully there are many more Affleck films to come… even better than his last great film Gone Baby Gone. Affleck knows how to write and direct an action/drama film.  This was not just a typical action film that is solely based on Hollywood effects—it has a very smart plot, both original and interesting.