DVDiculous: The Town

It took a while but I have finally gotten over my hatred of Jeremy Renner. I’m still not ready to handle him in a starring role like in The Bourne Legacy but I’ve accepted him as a co-star. Since I can now stomach him I decided to watch The Town. I’ve seen Argo twice in a week now, loved Gone Baby Gone, and if Ben Affleck who directed and starred in this movie can do one more great film he is officially official in my book. The name of my book? The Book Of Ass. This entire movie takes place in Boston and I knew that going in so I was able to prepare myself for the accent.

"Hey. Wanna go out?"

These four friends Doug played by Affleck, James aka Jem played by Renner…and the rest, rob banks. They stick up a place and beat the hell out of the captain from Titanic and make one of the workers, this cute chick named Claire played by Rebecca Hall. James is a fucking lunatic and decides to take her hostage and drop her off on a beach and take her ID to let her know they will kill her if she talks to the cops. James tells Doug that he will handle her but Doug is like “You’re two wings short of a three piece meal. I’ll talk to her.”

He totally wasn't aiming a gun at her a few days ago.

They head to this bar to celebrate and the town cooze Krista played by Blake Lively meets up with them and ends up heading to James’ house. He is a recovering drug addict and alcoholic and doesn’t want to deal with her nonsense. She don’t care and pulls her draws down, rides him, and leaves. Do these girls exist?! Like, in the really real world?! I mean, like, in a drug free version. I don’t know what it says about me but I only find Lively and Olivia Wilde as a crack whore and stripper.

I'm going to hell.

Twice.

Doug meets with Claire at a laundromat and they chat. She spots some blood on her shirt from when her bank manager got beaten and starts to cry. James consoles her and asks her out. They hit it off and have a good time. Meanwhile, he tells James that everything is taken care of and James is all “I’ll kill her. I’ll do it. I don’t even need a reason. I just want to kill things.” On another date Claire tells James that she saw a tattoo on the back of one of the criminals necks but didn’t tell the FBI.

Bunch of law abiding citizens. Yep. 

One of the FBI is Special Agent Adam Frawley played by the dreamy Jon Hamm. He likes Claire but thankfully they don’t push it hard. He takes her out and talks to her about what its like being on the good side of the law and he’s pretty dull. Doug wants to lay low for a while after the last robbery but James is all kill crazy and wants to do another job. Claire tells James about some guys who bothered her so he gets James and they beat the shit out of the guys. And by “beat the shit” I mean using a sledgehammer, nightstick, and James shooting one of them in the legs. James ends up finding out while out that Doug is seeing Claire. it’s a really tense and uncomfortable scene!

How can you not want to bone this man?!

They rob an armored truck and end up shooting one of the guards and escaping dressed as the scariest nuns ever. They barely get away from the cops and the bridge that they use to get back home after robberies is shut down right after they make it across. At this point Doug is like “Fuck this. I met a nice girl, I got cash, and I’m leaving.” Doug is like “Yeah, no. That’s not happening.”

Sweet Jesus!!!

Agent Frawley finds out that Claire has been seeing Doug who he seriously suspects of committing the robberies and shows up at Claire’s house to show her a list of suspects all of them being Doug and his friends. Claire plays it cool as if she doesn’t know any of them. Doug is asked to do a big job robbing Fenway Park and he doesn’t want to do it. He meets with their boss Fergie who runs a flower shop and crime played by the late Pete Postlethwaite who tells him that he will kill Doug along with Doug’s new girlfriend. He also mentions that he has already taken care of Doug’s dad. And that he is the one that got Doug’s mom hooked on drugs which led to her suicide.

Scariest. Man. Ever.

Oh, Doug met his dad in prison played by Chris Cooper and asks why he never looked for his mom after she left. His dad pretty much tells him that his mom was a drug using whore and that she left and he didn’t think Doug would still be carrying this torch for her.

"Your mom was a ho-ore!"

The crew is arrested for suspension of robbery and are held for a while. None of them talk and it’s a very funny scene. Doug lets the FBI know that they are aware that they’ve been tailing them and taking photos so that they should do a better job next time.

"Don't mind us. Just regular cops."

Doug and James dress as cops and get into Fenway Park. Doug talked to Claire and she doesn’t want anything to do with him knowing he is one of the guys who held her up at gunpoint. He apologizes and tells her to please wait for him. They are able to get about $3,000,000 and almost get away after switching to EMT uniforms until Doug notices how quiet it is. He spots the cops outside and a giant gunfight starts! One of them is killed, the driver crashes through the door and is shot and crashes. James and Doug get back into cop uniforms and get away.

Shit.

Agent Frawley spots James dressed as a cop carrying a duffel bag and chases him down. They start shooting at each other until James is wounded in the leg. James already mentioned that he is not going back to jail so he takes a sip of street soda and jumps out guns blazing until he is shot dead. Doug watches this all from a distance and gets away. He calls Claire and he sees that cops are in her home. She gives him a coded message and he leaves her with a shit ton of money that she uses for a hockey rink for the kids and he moves to Florida.

This movie was good and pretty damned long. Apparently it was supposed to be four hours long and had to be super trimmed down. I’ll be watching the special features to see if I can sit through a four hour movie which I’ve never done before. Like I said, I’m waiting for Affleck to do one more good film before I sing is praises since M. Night fucked me over doing three great films and then shitting in my eyes about four times afterwards.