The Town; A Stupid, Overrated, Crappy Movie:

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Hey, folks!  

Since I’m in a rambling mood, here’s hoping that you can tolerate another review of a film that is more like a feature-length made-for-TV, junky soap opera.  Sure, there are good and bad movies in every era and in every decade, but this decade has certainly taken the cake regarding really lousy movies.  Movies that give the message that it’s okay to steal, terrorize, kill, maim and, in general, put the lives and very safety of innocent bank employees and customers at risk in order to steal their money from them.  This movie also provides the message that it’s okay to be an accomplice to and abet an armed felon and wanted fugitive, enable him to elude the law, and to help make total dupes out of law enforcement people whose job it is to bring long-time thieves, thugs and killers to justice and put them behind bars, if and when necessary, for a period of time.  

This movie I’m referring to is Ben Affleck’s most recent movie, The Town, which is based on Chuck Hogan’s novel, Prince of Thieves, which I read and found far better than the film, although, in either case, I still admit that the whole idea of some girl from a middle class background, who’s a bank manager and makes good decent money falling in love with some guy that she met at a laundromat just days after being robbed and kidnapped (after being blindfolded) at gunpoint), who turned out to be the leader of the band of masked men with automatic weapons who robbed her bank and kidnapped her, really doesn’t sit well with me.  Just saying.

Anyway, here’s my somewhat venomous review of The Town;

The Town is an overrated, cheesy piece of junk that’s more like a feature-length made-for TV soap opera than a regular movie.   Imho, the more I think about it, the more I opine that The Town never, ever should have made it into the cinema…at all.

The cast is mediocre at best, the plot and story are overused, the Boston accents, especially on the part of Ben Affleck, are forced and way overdone, and the chemistry between Doug and Claire is non-existent to paltry, at best. One of the most, if not the most bothersome aspects of The Town is the message that it clearly conveys; that it’s okay to steal and rob innocent people of money that they don’t deserve to lose, to terrorize, permanently maim, put innocent bank employees and customers’ lives and safety at risk, to abet an armed felon and wanted fugitive (Doug MacRay, the ringleader)to escape the law by getting involved romantically with him, allow him to buy expensive Tiffany diamond necklaces for one, and make utter dupes of law enforcement people who’ve been assigned to bring guys like Doug MacRay to justice and end their robbery careers once and for all, by lying to the Feds, and tipping an armed felon off to them and helping them escape. I think it’s totally wrong.

Oh, and why is it okay for good-girl Claire to receive stolen goods and spend that money on the renovation of a seedy hockey rink and dedicate it to her criminal boyfriend’s mother who she never knew?

Hey...come on!  Doug put the romance moves on Claire when he met her, in order to shut her up and warn her oh, so subtely not to talk to the Feds or else! One’s supposed to think that Doug really loves Claire and is attrracted to her by her winsome personality, but nothing could be farther from the truth, imo.  Sure, Claire was pretty enough to look at, but Doug also found Claire attractive, in that she was clearly vulnerable after being traumatized by him and his guys having held up her bank at gunpoint, beat the hell out of and nearly killed her assistant manager, and therefore found Claire quite gullible and open to exploitation.  When Doug got what he wanted out of Claire (a promise not to go to the cops or the Feds), he left a duffel bag full of money in her community garden and skipped town for Florida, because he was on the lam from the law.   Doug couldn’t elope with Claire and exploit her as a bargaining chip, the way he’d wanted to do.

It’s funny how most people don’t realize that Doug was a sociopath who totally exploited the women in his life; Krista for sex, and he left her with nothing, even though he knew she had a young child to take care of (who might or might not be Doug’s), and Claire, ( for whom he purchased a small but expensive Tiffany diamond necklace) and who he thought he could elope to Florida with, but could not, after having charmed her into trusting him and then worming his way into her heart so that she’d shut up and not talk to the Feds. One is supposed to sympathize with both Doug and Claire, but, in reality, neither of them deserved any sympathy.

Imho, when the Feds had Claire and Doug meet at her Charlestown condo in a last-ditch effort to nab Doug MacRay and send him off to a Federal penitentiary for his crimes, the Feds should’ve made Claire keep her big fat mouth shut, not call Doug or answer his phone calls, and let them do their job of arresting Doug and bringing him to prison for his crimes.

Doug deserved to end up in a penitentiary for his crimes, and Claire deserved to be criminally prosecuted herself, or at least put on some sort of probation for abetting Doug and for receiving stolen goods (Doug’s illl-gotten heist money).

I’m sorry, folks, but I cannot bring myself to be sympathetic to either Doug or Claire, who, imho, turned out to be the most dislikeable, and annoying characters in The Town. What most people don’t realize is that Doug is an armed felon and wanted fugitive who’s on the lam from the law, so he’s not going to Florida on vacation. Happily, there;s no way that he and Claire will ever meet again, but the fact that Claire didn’t turn to Frawley for help after learning the truth about Doug and reallizing that she was in over her head, is beyond stupid, and wrong.

The fact that Doug and Jem broke into a housing project apartment and beat the crap out of two Dominicans from a housing project who’d supposedly thrown bottles at Claire when she’d been stupid enough to walk by herself through a housing project (no woman in her right mind would do that, at any time of night or day) and permanently cripple them, without even telling them why shows that Doug, as well as Jem, is a man of violence. My, my…Lady Claire must’ve felt flattered that two armed felons who were also wanted fugitives from the law came to her defense! Pretty sickening, this whole thing.

I have to admit to one thing:  The idea that so many people could fall, hook, line and sinker, for this cheesy piece of junk of a movie almost defies belief, although it’s not really all that surprising, since the dumbing down of America is continuing without let-up, in the movies, as well as in so many other arenas, if one gets the drift.