David O's Hustlin'

Oh, no, we're starting to overrate David O. Russell!

Don't get me wrong, I think Russell has put together a solid career, especially these past few years. The Fighter is one of my favorite modern sports movies, and while I contend that the mental health topic was just a smokescreen for an otherwise-predictable romantic comedy in Silver Linings Playbook, it was still a well-made, exceptionally-acted motion picture. And so when this man pumps out a movie, it's fairly easy to drum up audiences, even when your trailers reveal none of the plot and thrive on catchy pop tunes. He's gotten to that pedestal that all directors hope to achieve, where their name holds more allure than many of the all-star cast that people are actually going to be staring at for over two hours. And all in all, he's deserved it, getting excellent performances from talented casts and piecing together a strong filmography. So it's a surprise to no-one that American Hustle has gotten so much praise from critics, and that audiences have been solidly filling theaters to see it. There's just one problem... the movie's not really all that great.

If you grew up in the 80's, you knew this guy.

The movie is a fictionalized retelling of the FBI's ABSCAM investigation that saw several US politicians convicted of corruption charges from the late 70's to the early 80's, saying that "Some of this actually happened" but also changing all the names and details involved. So right off the bat we have a problem. Yes, last year we had an historical drama that changed many a detail for the purpose of telling a good story in Argo. But while Ben Affleck might have fudged a few lines in adapting his Best Picture winner, he was still determined to tell stories about real people faced with impossible odds. It didn't matter that not everything in the movie matched up with its real world counterpart, because at the end of the day Affleck was representing these folks as truly as he knew how. Russell meanwhile uses such an important moment in US history as ABSCAM as a mere baseline for his own simple morality play (which he rewrote from a screenplay by The International's Eric Singer), and doesn't really seem care about the event's historical significance, or how it relates to the story he wants to tell.

Okay, guys, you can play patty-cake later.

The film also stutters through an opening act told almost entirely in voice-over monologues. Even if you can accept this clear breach of "show but don't tell" (at which movies of this level are SUPPOSED to excel) as a quick and easy method of introducing our leads, there's no real excuse for not settling on one voice; the narration starts from the perspective of small-time conman Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), which makes sense, because he's the protagonist of the story. But Russell quietly ushers in a change by adding in the disembodied voice of Amy Adams (playing Irving's business partner and mistress Sydney Prosser) for no discernible reason other than to make fun of the main character's comb-over. What's painful is that the scenes are actually so well-shot, and these actors so evocative despite lacking dialogue, that the scenes really do speak for themselves, making the voice-overs completely unnecessary. It's almost as if the director dumbed-down these scenes in an attempt to create a more audience-friendly atmosphere. That's not something you want to see from a man who was never concerned with mainstream success in the past.

Just... wow.

Fortunately, most of the succeeding acts are much better compiled, as they focuses on what makes David O. Russell movies so revered: the interplay between characters. The relationships between each pair of personalities are so well-constructed and believable that they MAKE American Hustle as entertaining as it is. For instance, many sides of Irving can be seen through his interactions with others, from his tempered fury for FBI handler Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), to the genuine (and conflicted) friendship he develops with well-meaning corrupt politician Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), to his poisonous relationship with young wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence). Each character has a litany of such relationships to one another, and one of the film's true pleasures comes from seeing those emotional turmoils move the story forward from scene to scene. The actors have great chemistry, and it ups the payoff that is delivered, even when their actions are quite so noble as to be respected in that way.

There's a fetish for that.

It's a shame that the individual performances couldn't have been more consistent. Now, Bale is absolutely great, carrying the movie with an unusual combination of charm, honesty and a little bit of sleaziness to sell the con man angle. He's obviously deeply invested in this character, and it shows, as he proves once again to be among the best actors in Hollywood today. But even he is upstaged by his ladies, American Hustle's true stars. Adams has a rich, meaty role that she wholeheartedly throws herself into. Her sensual performance and easy chemistry with her costars makes for a lot of fun to watch, and she steals about half the scenes in the flick. Most of the others are stolen by Lawrence, who puts on one of the year's best performances despite being given material similar to Kat Dennings in Thor: The Dark World. Despite a role that feels largely written for laughs, Lawrence handily floors the audience with excellent comedic timing, an intense, believable on-screen presence, and more sheer talent than most career artists achieve in their lifetime. Both of these women deserve Oscar nods this year, despite the crowded Supporting Actress field; there might be a riot if even one of them fails to garner a nomination.

These scenes - and these ladies - are out of this world.

I just wish more of the cast had stepped up as those three. Cooper's FBI agent is so over the top, though to be fair he certainly was written that way, what with the completely forced love triangle and the prototypical interfering mother and a feud with his boss that in the real world would never be tolerated. But even then Cooper goes way over the top, over-exaggerating every syllable and becoming even more of a caricature. Worse off is Renner, whose script choices have not allowed him to approach the potential he showed in The Hurt Locker and The Town. Here he's barely used, and when he is the dialogue is so rote as to work against him. And yes, I know many of the scenes were ad-libbed, but those moments were infinitely better than those that were plainly scripted. Beyond the big five are a cavalcade of side characters, one-note parts given WAY too much material to justify their collective presence while wasting the considerable talents of the actors brought in to play them. It's this kind of lazy character development that sabotages much of the good the actors try to bring to the screen, and keeps the movie from ultimately reaching the zenith it ought to have.

Obligatory cast shot.

I feel like I've been saying this a lot in 2013 (and as I write this, it still IS 2013... Happy New Year!), but American Hustle just isn't as good as we expect it to be. It's still GOOD, but you have to navigate a messy story, hit-or-miss character development, and - perhaps its worst sin - a poor, heavy handed ending that comes out of left field and negates many of the "true story" ideas. Here, David O. Russell is a director not at his best, though he at least still has some of the year's best performances under his guidance. Maybe this is part of an inevitable decline from greatness, or perhaps it's simply a slight downturn and his next picture turns into one of the best of all time. But while there's an interesting ABSCAM story out there begging to be told, it's not this one; because it's not really ABOUT the event. There was another director this year who took a "true" story, created a fictionalized narrative around it, changed everything that didn't work or might be controversial, threw in a solid cast and tried to take a humorous approach to it. Who was that again... oh, right, it was Michael Bay. And when your movie can find more apples-to-apples comparisons to Pain & Gain than it can to Argo, you've definitely got some problems.

Open Letters Monthly: Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters

If you ever had any doubt that January is where studios dump the stuff of failure, look no further than Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, the alternate fantasy from the mind of Dead Snow's Tommy Wirkola. In it, we follow adult incarnations of Hansel and Gretel as they journey throughout the land, killing witches and saving children from what was almost their fate twenty years ago.

When a small town suffers some of the worst and most brazen witch attacks of all, Hansel and Gretel are brought in as bounty hunters to kill the witches and rescue the children alive. But something is terribly wrong, as the witches seem to be hatching a plan unlike anything seen before.Soon it seems apparent that Hansel and Gretel are not hunting... they are the hunted.

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is directed by Tommy Wirkola and stars Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Thomas Mann, Pihla Viitala and Peter Stormare.

Click here for the full review at Open Letters Monthly.

Open Letters Review: The Bourne Legacy

I love the Bourne films. Starting with 2002's Bourne Identity, we were introduced to Jason Bourne, an amnesiac, kick-ass super-agent played surprisingly by Matt Damon (remember, this is back when people thought his running Ben Affleck would be a bigger star), and the movie featured twists, action and excitement on unprecedented levels for the time. After the conclusion of Damon's trilogy, the studio decided to look into the fallout of Jason Bourne's actions by telling the story from another genetically-modified agent, this time Jeremy Renner's Alex Cross.

When Jason Bourne threatens to expose the actions of the United States black ops group Treadstone, it sets off a domino effect. Outcome, and its chief Eric Byers, decide to play it safe and liquidate the program, to take the accumulated data and start over elsewhere. Unfortunately for people who work at Outcome, that means murdering agents, scientists and support staff to wipe out all record of the program. Two people who refuse to go down are agent Alex Cross and virologist Dr. Marta Sheering, who find they need one another's help if they're going to survive this government coverup.

The Bourne Legacy is directed by Tony Giltroy and stars Jeremy Renner, Edward Norton, Rachel Weisz, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Stacy Keach, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn and Albert Finney.

Click here for the whole review at Open Letters Monthly.

Mashup in Manhattan

I try not to make snap judgments when I call a film my favorite so far of the year. I generally attempt to step back from the initial rush I felt in the immediate aftermath of the movie in question and ask myself as to what made that particular title so great. That was certainly easy when the films in question were the relatively unremarkable Haywire, The Secret World of Arrietty and Friends with Kids. Much as I enjoyed each of those titles, they were absolutely the best of what was a swath of mediocre releases beginning in January that has continued largely unchecked in 2012. Having a clear frame of mind became more difficult in March, when the first great film of the year was released in the Hollywood remake 21 Jump Street, and again in April with the horror spoof The Cabin in the Woods. As opposed to simply enjoying myself at the theater, I was actually having  rip-roaring times, firsts for the year. When I stood back and declared them #1's, I had to force myself to look past what I loved about them and see them for what they really were. Fortunately, that still made them excellent films, though I now find myself in an even more difficult position today that I did in those past two instances: a great movie that I thoroughly enjoyed to the tune of it easily catapulting to the top of my 2012 rankings. But does Marvel's The Avengers truly deserve to be known as the #1film of the year? Following is a list of the big and little things director Joss Whedon did right in adapting the popular comic book superhero team to the big screen.

Joss Whedon Success #1: A Classic Tale

I'm sorry, it's still difficult to believe that Chris Evans is that big...

When the Marvel Comics super-group The Avengers was first formed back in 1963 by creative minds Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, it was to unite several of the characters the two men created to battle villains no one hero could defeat, in this case Loki, the Asgardian god of mischief and brother and arch-nemesis of superhero Thor. Knowing this, Whedon gleefully pits Loki (Tom Hiddleston) against Earth's mightiest heroes, or at least those who have had successful film runs to this point. When Loki steals an alien power source with limitless potential, the Tesseract (Sorry, purists, but I'm glad they didn't call it the Cosmic Cube), from the hands of international law enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D., director Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) calls together the strongest and smartest known heroes in an attempt to prevent Loki from subjugating the world's population. It may not be all that easy, as it will take the combined strengths of super-soldier Captain America (Chris Evans), genius in a metal suit Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), thunder demigod Thor (Chris Hemsworth), gamma-irradiated scientist/monster Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and master assassins Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) to prevent the bad guy from using the Tesseract to summon an alien army to pacify the Earth for his rule.

Funny, he doesn't LOOK particularly angry...

Whedon knew what he was doing when he wrote this script; each character has their own stake in what happens, and the balance between characters is such that never does anyone gets too much attention in comparison to the others. Placating the egos of big-name actors is never an easy task, though that was perhaps made easier by presenting them a tale that starts off with huge consequences and that keeps raising the stakes, never allowing itself to falter even in the face of necessary plot exposition or character development. Keeping a steady pace throughout means the audience never feels lost, even if they've never read a comic book in their life or seen any of the preceding Avengers films. Still, I have no doubt that the die-hard fans will have the best experience, as this is a story that hearkens back to the golden age of comic book heroes and villains.

Joss Whedon Success #2: Hero Cooperation... and Conflict

It's a good thing the god of thunder doesn't sucker-punch...

One of the great thing about the Avengers comics over the years was that you had a constantly-rotating group of heroes who fought gallantly to protect the world from evil. Of course, the unsaid portion of that statement is that this group rotated their members because the erstwhile allies didn't always get along. Whedon did good by not making this a seamless transition from a number of solo heroes into bad-ass super group; these guys have little in common, and early on they make it vocal what they despise about one another. What Lee and Kirby knew, and Whedon wisely picked up, is that when the strongest people on the planet have a beef with one another, rarely will words win a fight where fists do quite nicely. In often clashing with one another, the characters' eventual uniting under a shared threat is made far more amazing, especially when those fights prove to be far from over in the heat of battle. Great acting is simply a great topping, as Downey Jr, Evans, Hemsworth et al make the whole thing work, good or bad, in their characters' interactions with one another.

Joss Whedon Success #3: The Hulk Done Right

Okay, NOW we run!

As a film franchise, The Hulk has not really been much of a success by the standard set by Thor, Captain America and Iron Man for Marvel. Failing to gather much traction either in 2003 or 2008, the reason for Hulk apathy is as simple as the hero's premise: Bruce Banner gets mad, he turns into Hulk, repeat as necessary. But what makes Hulk bland as a solo act grows new life when he's thrown against other heroes, whether he's hunting Black Widow through the bowels of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s  Helecarrier or duking it out with Thor. And when he takes his "Hulk Smash" bit out on an invading army... well, let's just say that seeing is believing. Thanks equal parts smart storytelling from Whedon and the casting of Ruffalo (which has proven to be a masterstroke of genius), not to mention unprecedented CGI/motion capture work which finally allow the not-so-jolly green giant to live up to his namesake, The Hulk finally feels like a force to be reckoned with. Combine that with Whedon's liberal use of comedy to disarm your senses, and he appears to finally be coming into his own as a movie character.

Joss Whedon Success #4: Suitable for Your Children

The new Michael Ball fashion show begins with a twist.

Remember last summer, when Transformers 3 hit the big screen? Besides being a jumbled mess thanks to director Michael Bay, the destruction of Chicago (the film's only worthwhile bit) was tempered a bit when scenes were shown of the evil Decepticons gleefully firing on fleeing civilians and turning them into bones and ash. Or Green Lantern, in which Parallax's invasion of Earth began with the disintegration of several people? The fact that these films easily got themselves PG-13 ratings while recent documentary Bully was repeatedly saddled with an R is kind of bullshit, but what makes those films' actions so reprehensible was that the filmmakers KNEW a lot of young kids and teens were going to beg their moms and dads to see these titles, and the actions of the directors left a poor taste in responsible parents' mouths. That isn't a real risk in The Avengers; while there is certainly plenty of exciting action to go around, parents can be reassured that there will be no violent depictions of mass murder to clog their children's minds, only the kind of fights that will inspire them to mock-fight with friends in their yards afterward.

Manhattan has never looked better!

Marvel's The Avengers is frankly a film with few flaws. It's strongly written, loyal to its fanbase without being disingenuous to those who perhaps aren't on the bandwagon, and amps up the action at all the correct moments. The actors are great, the humor is hilarious, the heroes are larger than life and there really isn't any better film to open the summer movie season. The only thing I can honestly say I didn't like was a factor most Whedon fans are intimately familiar with, and even THAT was done for the right reasons, whether or not we agree. Whedon's classic superhero world might not have the brilliant bleakness of Christopher Nolan's Gotham City, and might not stand up in quality to Nolan's upcoming Dark Knight Rises. It's a different animal, but never will there be a moment when The Avengers doesn't get SOME kind of reaction from you, whether good or bad. For now at least, it's not only the best movie of 2012, but the Marvel Comics movie to rule them all. Marvel's reign of dominance shows no sign of letting up, and I can't wait for the next entry to this franchise, as The Avengers left me wanting even more once the credits had stopped running.

A Tom Cruise Horror Story

The search for last minute additions to 2011's "Worst Of" list continues. Today's contender is the latest in Tom Cruise's popular Mission Impossible films, code-named Ghost Protocol. It's relative easy to write off Tom Cruise these days. Ever since he decided he was going to act all bat-shit crazy, his box office performance went from "sure thing" to "meh" in a heartbeat and although he's still a profitable actor, he's nowhere near the superstar he was a decade ago. Thankfully for his agent, there's still one franchise that is completely under his control, and that's the Mission Impossible series. With both his sexuality and religion constantly under fire, it must be nice to be able to make an escapist film with zero elements of realism and earn a ton of cash doing so. In this latest installment, Cruise upped the ante by bringing in such talented performers as Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton and Michael Nyqvist, not to mention director Brad Bird in his live action film debut. So will this latest entry have the same draw as the series' earlier titles? I'd be content knowing whether or not it was any good.

Tom Cruise: rugged and loving it

After his IMF unit breaks him out of a Russian prison, super-spy Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is tasked with the mission of breaking into the Kremlin to extract sensitive nuclear launch information before it can be appropriated by a fanatic intent on starting a worldwide nuclear holocaust. When they fail and the Kremlin is bombed in a related attack, Hunt and his team are blamed, forcing the US President to declare "Ghost Protocol" in effect, disavowing the IMF completely. Now this small group must stop terrorist Kurt Hendricks (Nyqvist) from successfully launching a nuclear warhead, and they must do it without backup, support or any allies to fall back on. Win or lose, they must do it on the fly and with whatever materials they can scrounge up, from Moscow to India and home again.

Yes, Simon Pegg is here... I'm not sure why, exactly, but there you are

As in all the previous Mission Impossible titles, you have to keep a very high measure of disbelief in your system throughout most of your viewing. There is so much that happens, and the heroes (especially Cruise) are banged up so much over the course of the film that it's a shock they can still stand through most of it. Adrenaline and sheer willpower can only take you so far, after all. Still, Ghost Protocol does have some truly exciting sequences, and spread throughout the film to boot. There's no one moment that stands out as best from the others, though sufferers of Acrophobia will probably find it impossible to watch Ethan Hunt scale a portion of Dubai's Burj Kalifa without a safety harness. It's a difficult scene to watch even without the ever-present sense of vertigo setting in. Other standouts include Hunt chasing a target through a sandstorm and Agent Brandt (Renner) diving into a tunnel to get "caught" before he can impact with a giant turbine. The special effects are consistent throughout, with only a few moments looking obviously tweaked beyond the realistic. Bird's live-action directorial debut obviously could have benefited with a step further from the animation that he's used to working with, but to be honest the difference would have been negligible at best.

I'm guessing they can't hear him now. Good.

The acting, like the SFX, is if nothing else consistent. This is the type of film where most actors can get by on their charm, and for most of the people here, that is true. It's certainly the case for Cruise, who (ahem) cruises through everything that happens with a cool face of detachment, except for the few moments in the script that call for mild frustration. Despite his relative career downturn, Cruise hasn't needed to act in almost a decade, and when all he apparently does these days is action films, that's understandable. Less understandable is when a talented performer such as Paula Patton falls in that trap, an actress who has nowhere near the career cachet to justify oozing with charm without bringing more to the table. There's plenty of opportunity for her character to grow, but sadly that never really seems to happen. Simon Pegg is the comedic sidekick and he knows it, but apparently the script didn't, and Pegg does more than you might expect, though it was nice to see him bring a levity among the critically serious characters around him. Veteran actors Tom Wilkinson and Anil Kapoor also do little, with Wilkinson playing his small role as dry as the Sahara, and Kapoor doing just the opposite, playing up on the charm he exuded in 2008's Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire.

The best deterrent against catcalls

But there are still a few actors who defy the shallowness of their roles. It's a shame to see that this year Michael Nyqvist has followed up arguably his most successful heroic role (that of Mikael Blomkvist in the Swedish adaptation of the Millennium series) with two cliched villain parts, first in the stinker Abduction and now this. He's a far more talented actor than he's being given a chance to be in Hollywood, and I wonder how long the good will is to last for him on the big screen in the good ol' USA. Still, he does do menacing well, and his final battle with Ethan Hunt at the film's finale is nothing if not believable. Lea Seydoux also stands out as a French assassin for hire, though she only appears in a few scenes of note. Finally, Jeremy Renner plays the only member of the four-person IMF team given real character development, and he is the only one who actually acts his way through the entirety of the movie. Renner is quickly becoming a true superstar, and I'm happy to see him rise to such heights from the relative success of 2009's The Hurt Locker.

Don't look down don't look down don't look down...

Between the action, special effects, and a liberal dose of humor that doesn't overpower the seriousness of the situations presented in the film, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol does a better than average job of entertaining its audience. It's not a very good movie overall, but nobody expects that of franchise action films these days, and this entry is no different from any similar release. That's it's biggest drawback, of course; you could have literally stayed home and rented any other action film (or an earlier Mission Impossible) and gotten exactly the same amount of fun from that than you would from Ghost Protocol. Still, it's nowhere near as poor as you can imagine, and should ensure more entries to the Mission Impossible series before too long. After all, Tom Cruise has to make money SOMEHOW.

Hometown Team

Ben Affleck might have finally discovered his calling. In recent years, Boston has become a haven for crime movies, from 2003's Mystic River to 2006's The Departed to little-seen 2008's What Doesn't Kill You, Hollywood seems to have become entranced by Boston's criminal history and the kinds of stories that affords. Affleck even got in on the act, making his directorial debut with Gone Baby Gone, overseeing a stellar cast including Amy Ryan, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, and little brother Casey Affleck. As director, Affleck drew on his experiences growing up in Boston to tell the story to the best of his ability, using the same instincts that made him such a star in the first place. Just the latest part of his Hollywood reboot after failing for so many years to be taken seriously by movie audiences, it's almost as though retreating to his roots is what finally saved his career.

Don't look don't look don't look, aw crap

When I first saw the trailer for The Town I was spellbound, my mind still processing what it had seen through my eyes. Not only was the film based in my home city, but in areas I was actually familiar with, as filming had taken place mere minutes from my apartment. On top of that, the film looked AMAZING, with another all-star cast and crew stepping up and putting together one of the more anticipated films this year.

Ben's about to put a beat-down on ya

Based on the novel Prince of Thieves by Massachusetts native Chuck Hogan, The Town introduces us to former pro-hockey prospect and lifetime criminal Doug MacRay, played by Ben Affleck, right as he and his crew of ne'erdowells begin their robbery of a bank in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts (in an area, Harvard Square, that I often frequent). After completely catching everyone by surprise, the gang is methodical in their execution of this endeavor; They almost routinely secure the bank employees, destroy the security footage, and calmly disable the guards while getting the bank's manager (Rebecca Hall) to open the safe so they can loot the contents. Afterwards, in a move not normally carried out by their crew, Jem (Jeremy Renner) decides to take the manager hostage to guarantee their escape, and the crew eventually drops her off when they are sure they've gotten away safely. The crew, despite being upset with Jem for taking such an unnecessary risk, believes they've gotten off scot free. The FBI has no leads, the manager didn't see anything to identify them, and they're already getting ready for the next job. But when the crew discovers that Claire, the manager, lives mere blocks away from their native Charlestown homes, Doug volunteers to get close to her to find out whether she knows enough to finger them for the crime.

Let's talk about Lucky Strikes...

What the film probably does best is in the use of it's rich characters. Doug is a lifetime petty criminal who once had a chance to get out of this town of malcontents when he was drafted to the NHL, but frittered away that opportunity. Now he's pretty much stuck in a perpetual rut, looking for a way out of this criminal career before he ends up like his father (Chris Cooper), a permanent resident of federal prison. After his mother left when Doug was a child, he's really had no choice but to follow the example of the few authority figures in his life: his father, lifelong friend Jem (whose family took him in when Doug's father was pinched), and local mobster Fergie the Florist (Pete Postlethwaite) who's at least partially based on real-life Boston mobster Whitey Bulger. Jem is also a great character, a sociopathic thug with little to no morals outside of his closest friends who will shoot anyone who gives him or his family (blood or otherwise) a hard time. And many of the others are well thought out deep characters, no mere cliches of personalities.

Stop it! Your name is NOT Serena!

As the two friends, Affleck and Renner have amazing chemistry. Though Affleck would probably be run out of town if he couldn't pull off a local accent, but he's also charming and disarming as Doug, who falls head over heels for his target and wants more than ever to get out of this livelihood. Renner is the real prize, however, a local with no ambitions to leave his current situation, a thug of the highest order who seems to get a rush out of a successful heist. What's best about the character is his obvious concern for Doug, who he practically considers a brother. It allows you to connect and feel sympathetic with this character, who otherwise might be a simple bad guy. Speaking of bad guys, the obvious villains in this drama are the FBI investigating the string of bank and armored car heists carried out by this crew. Out in front is Special Agent Adam Frawley (John Hamm), who acts as the main antagonist to Doug's potential freedom. Hamm is quite engaging here, and here manages to maintain a relative sloppiness in comparison to his Mad Men character. There's not so much grace to Frawley, with a perpetual five-o'clock shadow and a hangdog look to his eyes that suggests years of futility and frustration. He's one surprise in the cast based on his limited work elsewhere, the other is Blake Lively as Jem's sister, an oxy-addicted single mother stuck in Charlestown and also with romantic aspirations with Doug. This is no Gossip Girl variation, she plays a character different from any she's played before, and does it WELL, which is probably more than anyone expected of her. Cooper is good, though his role is limited to a couple of small scenes. His character is based on the no-snitch people you read about, the ones who refuse to rat out their buddies to avoid jail time. Hall is good but it's sad to think that her role is almost nonessential come the second act of the film. She does play a part, but the story becomes more a three-way Doug-Jem-Frawley battle for supremacy and while Hall's character is supposed to be in the middle, it doesn't always feel that way. She does do a good job conveying the psychological side of someone who's survived mental trauma, and she's so many light years ahead of her performance in the largely overrated Vicky Christina Barcelona that the London actress finally seems to be making a name for herself as a legitimate actress.

Is another Oscar nomination far in this man's future?

The story is rife with thrills and suspense. There's no real MYSTERY to this tale, only to how Doug will finally escape Charlestown and the same fate as his father. It is very compelling, though, as you find yourself rooting for Doug to not get caught, to be with Claire, to escape Frawley and Jem and Fergie and the whole mess that comes with the territory. On top of that, as a Boston resident I was thrilled with every scene where I recognized the locale from my own strolls down these streets. Any local must feel something different when a film is shot and based in Boston, as sometimes based in Boston means shot in Toronto. But the Boston location means so much more to me, and means I'm even more into what's happening perhaps than people who don't live here, or haven't grown up here. It's simply a thrill and privilege to think my city contributed in some way to this story being told.

"Yeah, I've been knocking over banks for years."

The Town, despite being poorly-named, is an amazing film with great characters holding the story together. Perfectly captured by one of Boston's own, it's one of the best Boston-based films. More down to earth than The Departed and with better characters than Gone Baby Gone, The Town is subtle, nuanced, smart, edgy, and thrilling, and totally deserving to be my new #3 for the 2010. After all these years, Affleck has learned how to do good, and he came home to do it. He makes this town proud.

Yeah, you don't want to be on their bad side