The Town (2010)

September 8, 2010 (Venice Film Festival), and September 17, 2010 (United States), release dates

Directed by Ben Affleck

Screenplay by Peter Craig, Aaron Stockard, Ben Affleck

Based on the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan

Music by Harry Gregson-Williams, David Buckley

Edited by Dylan Tichenor

Cinematography by Robert Elswit

Ben Affleck as Douglas “Doug” MacRay

Rebecca Hall as Claire Keesey

Jon Hamm as FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley

Jeremy Renner as James “Jem” Coughlin

Blake Lively as Krista “Kris” Coughlin

Chris Cooper as Stephen MacRay

Pete Postlethwaite as Fergus “Fergie” Colm

Slaine as Albert “Gloansy” MacGloan

Owen Burke as Desmond “Dez” Elden

Titus Welliver as Officer Dino Ciampa

Dennis McLaughlin as Rusty

Brian Scannell as Henry

Isaac Bordoy as Alex Colazzo

Jack Neary as Arnold Washton

Edward O’Keefe as Morton Previt

Victor Garber as David

Produced by Legendary Pictures, GK Films, Thunder Road Pictures

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures

The Town has it all—and then some—for a neo-noir: honor among thieves, betrayal, murder, bank robberies, armored car heists, loyalty to family and friends, and romance. The Town is based on the 2004 novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan. I have read Hogan’s novel (I am already planning to reread it so that I can post about it). I enjoyed the novel even more, but the film is also a great story. A little bit different from the novel, but a great story all the same. The writers did a wonderful job adapting it to the screen.

I have always wondered if Chuck Hogan borrowed from George V. Higgins, who wrote The Friends of Eddie Coyle (it is the basis of the movie by the same name). The similarities between the two films are even more striking, as I mentioned in my blog post dated April 28, 2016. Here are the examples I mentioned in April:

• Use of masks in the heists.

• The robbers don’t want to hurt anyone; they just want the money. In The Town, Jem Coughlin is an exception.

• The bank manager, Mr. Partridge, is blindfolded in the first heist in The Friends of Eddie Coyle, as is Claire Keesey in The Town.

• After the first heist in each movie, the bank manager is left at the beach. In The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Mr. Partridge (the bank manager) is told to walk until he finishes counting to 100, and he heads toward the water. In The Town, Claire Keesey (the bank manager) is told to keep walking until she feels the water on her toes (she is barefoot because the robbers took the bank employees’ shoes during the robbery).

In both the novel by Chuck Hogan and in the film, I rooted for Doug and his friends, his partners in crime. In the film, when they pulled the armored car heist in the North End of Boston, I wanted them to escape: I wanted them to make it across the Charlestown Bridge. But I’ll admit, it was mostly because I was rooting for Claire and Doug. If Doug got caught, what would happen to Claire?

When it came to rooting for Doug, the human interest elements helped the most for me. The romance angle was only one part of it. In addition were family complications, emotional debts left unpaid, childhood secrets kept for years. All of this makes for a complicated yet extremely satisfying story. Even though I had read the novel before seeing the film and thought I knew the ending, the film kept me guessing—and changed the ending.

Doug and his friends grew up and still live in Charlestown, Massachusetts: a place where fate plays a dominant role in the lives of the people born there. One of the quotes that opens the film tells viewers, “Bank robbery became like a trade in Charlestown, passed down from father to son.” And almost immediately after, Doug, in voice-over, tells viewers about the next bank robbery he and his friends are about to commit. The bank robbery is also the moment that Doug meets Claire Keesey, although he is already familiar with her work routine as part of his planning for the bank job.

(This blog post about The Town contains spoilers.)

As I recall, the film adheres pretty closely to the book. The film, however, streamlines some details about siblings Krista and Jem Coughlin, and the plot details surrounding FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley are minimized to make him less central to the plot, but the romance between Claire and Doug is left almost intact. I say “almost” because the film’s ending is a complete change compared to the book. I don’t want to say that it’s any less satisfying because I enjoyed the film immensely, but the book stays true to the characters and to the circumstances of their lives.

Part of the tension in the story comes from the relationship between Claire and Doug and all the events Doug sets in motion just by reaching out to her. She may have moved into Charlestown, but she is a newcomer and not one of Doug’s friends—and probably doesn’t want to know them. She represents everything that’s new and upscale, everything that Doug’s friends, especially Jem, resent. They have always lived from hand to mouth in crowded projects. Now people like Claire are moving into renovated homes that Doug and his friends cannot afford (unless they keep robbing banks and never get caught) and being pushed to the fringes of their own neighborhoods. Doug and Claire face social obstacles, to say nothing of the obstacles imposed by his chosen profession of bank robber.

So amid all the gunfire and chase scenes, The Town presents a love story that grows in complexity because of tensions, most of which the two lovers have no control over. The writers of the screenplay may have changed the ending, but this is one film that stands on an almost equal footing with the novel on which it is based. That’s quite an achievement.