The Town

The Town

Director: Ben Affleck.

Written By: Ben Affleck, Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard.

Photography: Robert Elswit. 

Starring: Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner and Rebecca Hall. 

Year: 2010.

Country: USA.

  After directing his younger brother Casey in the superb Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck places himself in front of the Camera for his next directing venture, The Town. 

 The Town is a modern day bank heist movie with it's heart in bank heist movies of the past. It owes a debt to movies like Michael Mann's Heat. 

 The Town, which is Charlestown, Boston, a place infamous for it's history of Irish Mobs and high crime rates. Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) leads a team of four which includes his amoral best friend, James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner). While robbing a bank Coughlin decided to kidnap the manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall), and leave her blindfolded on a beach. When MacRay runs into her in a laundromat,  he ultimately falls for her. Unaware that her new boyfriend is one of the men that robbed her bank, Claire is helping an FBI team, led by Mad Men's Jon Hamm hunt them down.

 Ben Affleck does a pretty good job of directing, there are the occasional and rare out-of-place arty moments where you think 'Ben, if you wanted to make an art film...' His acting was on-par, too; A lot of people claim to hate Ben Affleck's acting, which I've always found ridiculous. Affleck's nether a particularly good or bad actor, if you "Hate" him you must be really easily offended. 

 The rest of the cast includes Chris Cooper and Pete Postlethwaite (in the last role of his released before his death in early 2011).  Most the acting in the Town is good despite the dialogue sounding unnatural. The actors didn't make the words their own; I think Ben Affleck may have been a bit too protective of his script. The only bad performance was Blake Lively's, whose unbelievable and OTT performance shouldn't come as a surprise as she's awful in everything. 

 If, like me, you thought the coolest thing about Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break was the novelty masks of former presidents they used during the robberies, then you will enjoy the array of diverse masks they use in The Town. Given that when you strip The Town naked it is at most a romance film, it has more than a fair share of on the edge of your seat set species and action sequences. 

 The Town makes for a fairly entertaining watch. A cut above most films of it's type and has potential for repeat viewings; it will make a good double bill with Spike Lee's Inside Man.

   

Punch-Drunk Love

Punch-Drunk Love

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson. 

Written By: Paul Thomas Anderson. 

Photography: Robert Elswit.

Starring: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson and Philip Seymour Hoffman. 

Year: 2002.  

County: USA.

 Punch-Drunk Love is the fourth film from my man-crush Paul Thomas Anderson. Or PT, as he lets me call him (in my mind).  

 Lets get this straight to star with: Adam Sandler movies suck, in general anyway. And nobody likeable likes Adam Sandler. But Punch-Drunk Love is an exception, as is Funny People and as I understand, although I haven't seen it, Reign Over Me. Surprisingly, he gives a good performance in this, too. Sandler does actually have the capability of being a good actor, but much like Nicolas Cage, has a tendency to overplay his characters.

 The rule of thumb for Adam Sandler movies: If he wrote/directed/produced - avoid. Just acted - probably terrible, small chance it might be good. 

 Philip Seymour Hoffman, who's one of my favourite actors, also stars, although one of my major disappointments with Punch-Drunk Love is that he's not in it nearly enough. I'm really exited to see him and PT Anderson working together again later this year in The Master. 

 As well Phillip Seymour Hoffman it also stars Emily Watson, who I don't always like, but do in this. 

 Paul Thomas Anderson's direction is masterful, he's often crowned as the new Kubrick or new Altman, which are defiantly fair statements. Every part of its direction is fantastic, from stage direction to sound design. 

 Anderson worked on the sound for the movie with composer Jon Brion from pre-production to post to created a fantastic track. There's a drum beat that plays continually for about 10+ minutes that makes you feel like you've been doing half an hour of a treadmill (I imagine, I've never exercised In my life). Near the end I was literally screaming at the screen for it to stop. 

 There's also a interesting use colour in the film. For example Adam Sandler's famous blue suit that he wears throughout represents sadness, red represents danger and white isolation.  

 Romantic-Comedy is a sub-genre that's been tarnished by many terrible rom-coms in a post-There's Something About Mary world. With the abundances of Katherine Heigl movies in cinemas it's sometimes hard to forget that romantic comedies have to potential to be When Harry Met Sally-great (Now is a good time to give thought to the late Nora Ephron). Punch-Drunk Love isn't great, but it's good, and worthy of many laughs and multiple viewings.