The Townie

The Townie

Don't get me wrong.  I can admire Ben Affleck's unshaven face like the next guy.  I don't mind watching him walk the streets in his assortment of hoodies, brooding beneath his five o'clock shadow.  If I did mind, or if you mind, forget "The Town," because Affleck's character Doug does this a lot.  He hoofs about Charlestown Massachusetts looking good and feeling conflicted, all while wearing the de rigueur outfit of his fellow townies, though his, like his temperament, is comprised of more refined stuff, less outright sports apparel and more post-adolescent menswear, the kind he might don on a date to a fancy restaurant with, I don't know, a pretty assistant bank manager he robbed?

See, Doug's different.  He's different than Other Guys, but he's also different from the guys he grew up with, too, the guys he's still hanging out and robbing banks with.  He's also different than his bank-robbing father, and all the other criminals who call Charlestown home.  Because Charlestown's legacy, it turns out, its claim to infamy—about which we learn in the film's opening credits—is thieving.  Armed- and bank- robbery, to be specific, has a disproportional preponderance of occurring in, of all places, Charlestown, Massachusetts—aka The Town.  Doug's a handsome-ass man, he's a criminal by birthright, and he's different.  He's a nice bank robber.  He doesn't want to hurt anybody. 

In the opening scene, upon which the story pivots, it's nice bank robber Doug who tells the assistant bank manager in his nice take-your-time voice to take her time, as she trembles over the safe's combination while he and his posse wield semi-automatic weaponry over her head.  See, Doug cares.  He robs banks because, well, that's all he knows.  If you're a kid like Doug, raised up in The Town, you rob banks.  It's in the blood, like mining coal in West Virginia.  We should understand Doug.  Sensitive, conflicted bank robber, we're on your side!

And, Doug looks good.  Did I mention that?  He may not be mean, but he's lean.  He demonstrates why in a scene in which we witness his brisk push-ups and pull-ups, à la Clubber Lang.  Bank robber is ripped!  Affleck also directs, and I always wonder.  How are such vanity scenes actually shot?  Okay, boys, I’m going to get up on the pull-up bar now and start cranking 'em out.  Make sure to get in low, and get me from the crotch up.  That's when I really look ripped!  Make sure to highlight my lower abs, and don't make me have to shoot me again, these moves are hard.  Lights!

Two nights later, I stumbled upon "Heat" with Robert De Niro, and thank god I did.  Only then did I realize: "The Town" is a legacy piece on another level.  It's an homage, another Hollywood vehicle where the savviest, most professional of all men are really criminals.  And what do they really want?  What we all really want, the love of a good woman.  Duh!  So profound is this need, for thief or honest man, we are asked to overlook what these men do for a living.  Forget that they scare the bejeezus out of people, threaten, kill and steal from them.  Forget that!  They're handsome, dammit, and they need love.  Where's your compassion?

In "The Town," Doug's feisty bank robber best friend (a menacing Jeremy Renner) gets wild (someone always does) during the robbery and in so doing decides he must take a hostage.  You guessed right, it's the foxy assistant bank manager (Rebecca Hall) that Doug fell in love with as he coaxed her into dialing up the numbers of the bank vault without soiling her pretty panties.  The gang lets her go, unharmed and unmolested, but soon discovers she lives too close to the gang's 'hood, and is therefore a Big Problem.  Bad Bank Robber wants to kill her; Nice Bank Robber says he'll handle it.  This is movie code for: I will now spend the rest of the film charming her into scratching my back tattoos during coitus.

Which begs the question: how big is Charlestown Massachusetts, anyway?  This babe poses a should-be-killed problem because she lives nearby, but what about everybody else who keeps getting robbed in The Town?  Who would keep living there, for crying out loud?  It's raining thieves!  And why do these savvy bank robbers keep robbing (for decorum's sake, I won't use another phrase) in their own backyards?  I know one thing, if I lived in Charlestown, I'd do my banking in Mystic River.  They got other issues, but my money would be safe.

The current trend of romantic efflorescence between participants in which one is hiding something from the other continues in "The Town," an engaging trope.  The audience is smug knowing what the heroine doesn't about Doug.  The key problem is why would this hot, virtuous woman fall so quickly for this dude, his handsomeness and hoody collection notwithstanding?  He's not shy about guarding something from his past, and, doesn't she realize she lives in a town full of bank robbers? 

Nevertheless, she falls hard enough for Nice Criminal Doug that even though he betrays her, she still holds a candle for that inexplicable love (was it the tats?), a tiny flame that gives her no trouble whatever in accepting the stolen money he leaves her after skipping town.  I don't mean to be a stickler (okay, sure I do), but wasn't she once an assistant bank manager prepared to die defending its greenbacks?

In the end (spoiler alert?), we see handsome Ben, like Bobby De Niro before him, free but alone, gazing out over a melancholic vista.  Don't we feel for him?  Bank robbers are people too, you know.