Ben Affleck‘s Boston heist thriller, The Town, has found a fresh audience on HBO Max. It sits at No. 7 on the platform’s U.S. movie chart on August 19, according to FlixPatrol. Not bad for a film that hit theaters back in September 2010.
Affleck directed, co-wrote, and starred in it as Doug MacRay, the smartest guy in a crew of career bank robbers who wants out of the life. Jeremy Renner plays Jem, his volatile best friend. Rebecca Hall is the bank manager they take hostage, and Jon Hamm is the FBI agent closing in.
The ‘town’ in the title is Charlestown, a one-square-mile stretch of Boston that the film’s opening card claims has produced more bank robbers and armored car thieves than anywhere else in the country.
Ben Affleck’s The Town Cracks Top 10 on HBO Max in the U.S.
If you have somehow never seen it, this is the movie to pick. The Town holds a 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 85% audience rating to match. Jeremy Renner earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Made for $37 million, it went on to gross $154 million worldwide.
What makes it work is the detail. Affleck and his co-writers interviewed people in Charlestown and the FBI’s Boston violent crimes unit before shooting. It shows in how methodical the robberies feel, including the bleach on the keyboards, the tapes in the microwave, and how nobody is panicking. The film is really about a guy who cannot outrun where he grew up. Renner is the reason to stay, and his Jem is genuinely frightening.
As for the rest of the chart, The Town landed in strong company. Bob Odenkirk’s Normal took the top spot, followed by The Drama, Sicario, and Mortal Kombat II. Practical Magic and Hall Pass rounded out the upper half of the list above Affleck’s thriller.
The Town Has a Remarkably Similar Structure to That of Heat
Ben Affleck and Blake Lively in The Town | Credits: Warner Bros. Pictures
The Heat comparison has followed this movie since day one, and it is not hard to see why. Both films split their story between a disciplined crew of thieves and the law enforcement obsessively hunting them. Both open with a showpiece robbery designed to establish exactly how good these men are at their jobs.
Both fracture the crew from the inside as the stakes climb. And both build to a botched final score in the last act that tears everything apart. The romance beat lines up too. Michael Mann’s Neil McCauley falls for a woman and starts planning an exit after one more job. Doug MacRay does the same with Claire, dreaming about Florida while agreeing to hit Fenway.
Where they split is the ending. Mann does not let McCauley walk away. Affleck lets Doug survive, losing his crew and his neighborhood but getting a second life out of it. It is a softer landing than Heat would ever allow.
What do you think of Affleck’s thriller now on HBO Max? Let us know in the comments below!
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