Since Hollywoodland, he’s been on the comeback trail. Although, it’s not that difficult when you’re following up roles as a blind superhero in Daredevil and Jennifer Lopez’s play thing in Gigli. This is the life of Ben Affleck, whose career has been peppered with the good, the bad and the ugly.  These days, it’s as if Affleck has sprouted a halo and angel wings because he can do no wrong! Probably just jinxed him, but Affleck has turned on the talent instead of the schmarmy charms echoing a similar trajectory as Clint Eastwood in the gritty directorial achievements of Gone Baby Gone and now The Town. Just like Eastwood, he’s reinvented himself and taken on the world of directing and starring in his own pictures.

“Hands in pockets! I thought we talked about this?”

In The Town, Affleck is Doug MacRay – a former ice hockey hero turn hoodlum on the streets of Boston, purported to be the bank robbery capital of America. MacRay is one of the noble criminals, whose past life has a way of catching up with him. First, completing a bank robbery successfully with a hostage scenario, in which a reverse take on Stockholm Syndrome takes place. MacRay remains in contact with the hostage, Claire Keesey played by Rebecca Hall and a budding romance develops under the auspices of a chance encounter.

As with most crime drama thrillers the gang of robbers are painted into a corner and forced to do one last job. This “last” job has smacks of Kubrick’s The Killing as MacRay and his wingman, James Coughlin played to near-perfection by Jeremy Renner, pull a heist at the “Cathedral of Boston” – The Red Sox baseball stadium. It’s a daring manoevre and The Town builds us up to this daring escapade like an Ocean’s Eleven heist without the flashy novelty of Las Vegas. Instead we’re presented with the back-end of Boston, crawling with low-lifes and scum.

Irish accents, baseball bomber jackets and pockets of crime… this is not the Boston we know from shows like Boston Legal, but the gritty city’s underground. Just like Gone Baby Gone, Affleck has created an oppressive environment with moments of hope for humanity. We’ve got the vigilant police force, the one-step-ahead-of-the-law gangbangers and a tale of redemption. It’s a little bit like The Dark Knight, if it weren’t about Batman… a classy, well-acted and brilliantly edited piece of entertainment. Dark hues and solid writing underpin this crime drama, which is bursting at the seams – almost willing its way into the terrain of crime saga like something from a much broader piece or TV series.

“You had me at ‘put your hands up, BIATCH!'”

The story is gripping as masked identities, ulterior motives and justice take course. Affleck has shown he can act and now he’s demonstrated that Gone Baby Gone wasn’t a flash in the pan. While Rebecca Hall and Jeremy Renner deliver stand-out support performances, its Affleck who leads from the front with other noteworthy performances from Blake Lively and Jon Hamm FBI agent Frawley. The Town blends old world gangster films with the nuances and production values of contemporary classics like The Dark Knight and The Departed.

The Town makes a solid crime thriller, which establishes a tone and standard for Affleck’s brand of direction. It may not be the crime epic of the year, but it certainly holds it own and there’s no doubt that Affleck’s next film will draw even more attention as critics and movie goers contrast his new film with the story so far. The good news is that Affleck’s days of direction are still in their infancy, making it incredibly exciting to see where he goes from here. If he were to make a call betweenfull-time acting and directing… we’d better wait for his next movie before we make that call.

The bottom line: Quality.

Release Date: 31 December, 2010

Watch ‘The Town’ Movie Trailer

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