Ben Affleck gives us another movie to look down on. With only one good movie under his belt, Gone Baby Gone, I was hoping that The Town would be another, but sadly it wasn’t meant to be.
The problems with The Town are mostly with the acting and the screenplay. Mr. Affleck himself co-wrote the screenplay and directed this film, so the problems are laid down onto his shoulders. Critics have been giving The Town great reviews, but here is one reviewer who will not fall to Ben’s feet.
Blake Lively was one of the worst things about this movie. I stand by the opinion that she is one of the worst actresses I have seen, dead or alive. Jessica Alba or Biel could have pulled off this role better than she did. She looked and sounded more like an Italian gangster than a Boston slut (pardon the word choice, although she act that last part a little too much). A fake Boston accent and throwing your hands randomly in the air does not make you a good actress. And then there is Mad Men actor Jon Hamm who plays a cut and dry FBI agent with no background and no point other than to be there. Jeremy Renner is nowhere near as good as he was in The Hurt Locker. His fake accent hurt my ears and completely incomprehensible whenever he was on screen. And Ben Affleck was just being Ben Affleck.
The only two good actors, Rebecca hall and Chris Cooper, could not hold up the movie on their own. Chris Cooper was underused and Rebecca Hall was the only sign of light whenever Affleck was on screen.
The technical aspect wasn’t any better. The cinematography of a film is supposed to help build on the emotion of the actor’s performances and maybe add more. That’s what a talented director of photography would do. For this movie, they just pointed the camera straight at the actors and expected us to be moved by their own performances. The music is also there to help build the mood and give us as an audience more emotion. Harry Gregson-Williams, Hans Zimmer’s most adept protégé, did not do that great of a job with this film. It was a mellowed down score for a mellowed down movie. And when the action sequences came, it was a convoluted mesh of strings and electronic sounds. And the script, as I said, was horrible. There were so many stalk characters. The only interesting character was Ben Affleck’s and Rebecca Hall’s. However, Ben’s character is very contracting: he wants to move on with his life and wants to change, and yet he keeps partying with the boys and sleeps around with all of these girls (we actually see one of the nights). It just seems off to me that if you want to become a moral man and get rid of this life, you would just get out immediately and not just keep having sex and getting hammered.
The cold cut case is just to avoid this movie. Don’t see it. Whatever you pay for it won’t be worth it.
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