A night out to see 'The Town'

“I need you to help me with something. I don’t want you to ask me about it later, and we’re going to hurt people.”

“Whose car are we taking?”

It’s that kind of dialogue and screen acting that elevates Ben Affleck’s “The Town” from summer movie cash-in to fall movie Oscar bait.

“The Town” opens with facts claiming Charlestown, Mass., near Boston, is a breeding ground for bank robbers and drug dealers. More criminals come from there than from any other town in the country, a fact that serves as interesting character development for the low-life townies skilled in rigging every angle of a complex bank heist and making it look simple.

We meet Doug MacRay (Affleck) and James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner) in this very job, and it’s a scene directed with speed, vigor and a smooth hand. Much of “The Town”’s action sequences are stylish and clean in a way absent from most grittily realistic cop dramas today. 

The pair, long-time best friends, is concerned that the hostage they took after the bank job might recognize them, she being from Charlestown as well. Doug follows Claire (Rebecca Hall) to ensure she won’t talk, and he finds himself in a relationship with her, hiding his involvement at every turn. 

It’s an interesting romantic element thrown into the generic one-more-score-then-I’m-out-for-good scenario, and it’s disappointing that it and another theme suggested by “The Town’s” opening piece of trivia are belittled by the cliches in the screenplay.  

The thought process is that this breeding ground for criminals might say something about crime in general, but the film’s shoot-em-up, melodramatic ending stifles that potential.

Films such as “Boyz n the Hood” and “Gomorrah” are better examples of the idea that if you stay, you’re dead, and if you try to leave, you’re dead. 

Instead, “The Town” is more about its characters, which would be fine if they weren’t strung along by the constraints of a typical crime drama plot. For instance, the trigger happy Jeremy Renner character, a closely reckless personality to the one he has in “The Hurt Locker,”  is hardly developed as he is simply led along the path to his fate. 

But Affleck gives his characters a bit of breathing room, and we get strong performances from Chris Cooper and Jon Hamm. For one, Hamm’s FBI agent is an unrelenting, direct and cold powerhouse of a character. 

“The Town” is a strong sophomore directorial outing from Affleck, even if not as psychologically charged as his first film, “Gone Baby Gone.” He has the markings of a great director, and I look forward to his next trip to the streets of Boston.