Research

The Town (2010)

During the Christmas holidays I watched the film 'The Town' which is a crime thriller. Ben Affleck directed the film as well as helping to write the film and star as the main character.

The film includes some big names in the industry for example:

- Ben Affleck

- Jeremy Renner

- Blake Lively

The film is set in Charlestown and the first thing we see after the company idents is writing. 

It reads: "One blue-collar Boston neighbourhood has produced more bank robbers and armoured car thieves than anywhere in the world." We then see quotes from people from Charlestown/Boston: "Bank robbery became like a trade in Charlestown, passed down father to son." and "I'm proud to be from Charlestown. It ruined my life, literally, but I'm proud."

These short pieces of writing set up Charlestown to be a place filled with crime and a very unsafe neighbourhood to live in.

Ben Affleck stars as Doug MacRay who is a Charlestown thug and bank robber. The film opening has Doug MacRay voicing over what is going on and the camera is filming the man he is talking about. We then see him and his 3 associates robbing the bank. They make the banks assistant manager open the safe, then once they take the money they take her as a hostage and drive away in a van. They blindfold her and release her at the beach unharmed. She walks towards the water and later we find out she was told to walk until she feels the water on her toes. We also instantly see that Jeremey Renner who plays James Coughlin is the one out of the four who will kill anyone without question if needs be, so we see him as the most violent. 

The four main characters from left to right: 


Albert 'Gloansy' Magloan, Doug MacRay, James Coughlin, Desmond Elden

There is also a scene shortly after the bank robbery where Doug MacRay goes to a community church hall type of place. Just before we see him there, there is a voice over of people talking about experiences they've had in their life whilst Doug is in his flat. There is also almost a theme tune that is soft that we hear a few times in the film so it acts as a sound bridge along with the voice over which I think is really effective as it shows he is actually a caring character and obviously is not proud of what he does. Also because of where this scene is set it could maybe suggest that he has gone there to seek forgiveness from God. I think this is really affective because we although the film is mainly about crime, there are already elements of kindness creeping in. I find this inspiring because I think that having a sort of second storyline to a character is a clever way to draw the audience in as people are intrigued to find out what the character is really like.

Doug and the woman (Claire) that they kidnapped in the bank meet in the laundromat. Claire sees blood on her shirt from where James hit her colleague in the head with his gun. She starts crying and Doug tries to comfort her. I think this scene works really well with his character because although you would think that he is being friendly doing it to get closer to her, the comforting comes across to the audience fairly genuine. I think this because the camera is taking a close up of his face and we can see the expressions clearly. Even though we know Doug has a motive, it reminds us again of the caring side to him that we saw in the community church hall. He obviously gains her trust because in the following scene in the car, she talks to him about the bank robbery and what a horrible experience it was for her when they kidnapped her and left her on the beach. Doug says "I'm sorry" and she replies "It's not your fault" when the audience already knows it is. Most of the shots in these scenes are close ups so we can read their emotions easier by their facial expressions, but at that moment the camera changes angle so we are looking into the car through the windscreen. I think this is really effective because after all those close ups we can see both expressions. Doug appears to look guilty and genuinely sorry for what he did to her, whereas Claire has is smiling. I find that this change in shot works really well because the audience feels as if the expressions should be the other way round.