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Okay. I will finish this post in one sitting. I have started writing this review about four times now, and something always happens before I save my draft and I lose everything.

Ric and I thought The Social Network was going to come out a week earlier than it did, and when we found out it wasn't out, we decided we were still in the mood for a movie because it had been a while since we'd gone out to one. That's a weird feeling since we used to go to the movies every weekend (movies are less than overwhelming this year). So The Town was our unenthusiastic pick, but it actually surprised me.

Ben Affleck is best when he's involved in the writing of his movies, and especially when they take place in Boston. There were some similarities between this movie and Gone Baby Gone (I still hate the lack of punctuation in that title), such as: dangerous-side-of-Boston setting, guy in love with brunette but his job is interfering with his relationship, and a messed up blonde mother. But beyond those superficial similarities, this story stands up on its own. Afleck stars as Doug, who's in the business of robbing banks with his friends, one of whom is basically a ticking time bomb. During one of their robberies, he takes a bank manager hostage (Rebecca Hall). They drop her off unharmed after they get away, but they're nervous that she may be able to identify them to the authorities, especially since she's a local. When Doug befriends her under false pretenses, he starts to fall for her.

I liked that if one of the characters was going to be explosive (Jeremy Renner), Affleck let the parts of the movie that didn't involve him be a little bit more subdued. I liked that it wasn't in my face all of the time. Hall and Affleck have a natural way with each other, and I appreciated it. And the tension of Jeremy Renner's character is great as well. Like Nobody already mentioned in a previous conversation, there's a great scene where the audience has all the details and is basically just sitting there waiting for the bomb to drop and watching a character try and keep it from dropping.

I also like that Affleck seems to have learned from his own experiences in action movies that cameras don't have to jostle all over the place to make an effective action scene. At one point, there is a chase sequence after a bank robbery, and I could actually see everything that was going on; I loved that. I also loved how the scene captured the claustrophobic nature of Boston's streets. Each end of a street and subsequent sharp turn had me anticipating a huge car crash. I liked that I actually felt the danger of the scene, which made it feel a lot more realistic.

There are a lot of great actors in this movie (even Pete Postlethwaite has a small but intense role), and along with a script that keeps things moving but never overdoes it, I actually found The Town to be a lot better than I expected. I had a general idea of how it would ultimately end, but there were a lot of scenes that I couldn't anticipate a solution to, and really enjoyed seeing how they played out. It was nice to see a smart, well-executed drama/action movie in the middle of a very bland season.

Okay, that's a short review and less than focused, but seriously, I'm so tired of writing this same post that I'm going to let it go. I'm just glad to get a post up on here! Reviews to come: The Social Network, Toy Story 3, Joan of Arc, and Salt!