OVP: The Town (2010)

Film: The Town (2010)
Stars: Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively
Director: Ben Affleck
Oscar History: 1 Academy Award nomination (Best Supporting Actor-Jeremy Renner)
Snap Judgment Rating: 3/5 stars

Ha, proof I can post at least twice a year.  Progress!  So, for those of you who didn't see the post I posted 5 minutes ago, I am returning to the blog with a single purpose-to see every film ever nominated for a narrative, feature length Oscar category.  I'm calling it the Oscar Viewing Project (or for the ease of my fingers, OVP).  Since I'm working backward and I've seen almost every film from 2011, it will be a number of films from 2010 for a while.  First up, Ben Affleck's recent crime caper, The Town (spoilers to follow if you haven't seen the film).

The film opens with Affleck's handy Boston accent narrating an impending bank robbery.  In the following moments, we are introduced to the world of Charlestown (a Boston neighborhood) bank-robbing, as four masked men work through a quick, tried-and-tested series of events to rob the bank.  It's fairly standard-fare heist stuff, but it introduces us to our three primary players-Affleck, a "wrong-side-of-tracks" criminal with a heart of gold, live wire Jeremy Renner that you know will continue to get all maverick-y up in this film later, and the downtrodden, broken assistant bank manager Rebecca Hall, who must unlock the safe.  The robbers of course escape, but not before an inexplicably cast Victor Garber gets the butt of a gun in his head (why cast such a well-known character actor if you aren't going to use him later?), and madness continues.

Affleck, never a strong leading man, has a sturdier hand as a director, and keeps this film going at a strong clip, and has surrounded himself with a strong enough cast in Renner, Hall, ludicrously handsome Jon Hamm (playing a strong FBI agent) and Pete Postelthwaite as an enigmatic crime boss to hide the fact that this film is a rather routine crime tale.

The film has trouble juggling its many plotlines in its two hour frame. Affleck clearly cares most about the odd love story that develops between himself and Hall, who isn't aware that she's dating the man who held her hostage, but even that he can't come to a head to when he glosses out an apology when she inevitably discovers that he once held her at gunpoint.  The other storylines-about a damaged childhood, a deranged friendship with Renner, and a developing rivalry between Affleck and Postelthwaite all get their moments in the sun, but never long enough to develop into a really compelling cinematic moment.  Affleck's character makes a joke in the film about knowing a great deal about crime due to watching serial crime series like CSI, but his film occasionally lapses into the pitfalls of these series by focusing more on the actions of the characters rather than the reasons behind those actions.

Renner's explosive performance as an increasingly unhinged bank robber received an Oscar nomination for the film, and he definitely is the highlight of the film.  The best scenes in the film surround him and Affleck, and the terrific worn chemistry Renner brings to a friendship that is now built more out of obligation than genuine admiration.  Even so, of that year's nominees, I still preferred the subdued nature of Mark Ruffalo's sudden dad in The Kids Are All Right and the frighteningly enigmatic actions of John Hawkes in Winter's Bone to Renner.

What about you-what are your thoughts on The Town?  Do you like Ben Affleck better as a director?  Do you think that this and not Winter's Bone or 127 Hours should have been included in the Best Picture lineup in 2010 (at the time, it seemed like a battle between the three for the final two slots)?  And who was your favorite Best Supporting Actor of 2010?