The Town

On Wednesday, I saw The Town, starring Ben Affleck and Rebecca Hall.

Doug MacRay (Affleck) was the good kid from a bad Boston family. Dad is behind bars, mom has disappeared and his best friend, troublemaker Jim (Jeremy Renner) has taken him in as an adopted brother.

When we meet Doug and Jim, they're robbing a bank with their friends, and we see that Doug shows compassion for their hostage Claire (Hall), while Jim is more prone to aggression, beating an assistant manager savagely because he suspects he tripped the alarm.

Following the crime, the group needs to be sure the witness won't talk, so Doug follows Claire, quickly learning the emotional ramifications of what they did to her. He shows genuine compassion for her pain during a meet-cute at a laundromat and they begin dating.

Meanwhile, overzealous FBI agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) is determined to put a stop to this dangerous group and begins to put the pieces of the crime together.

From there it's a cat-and-mouse chase of further violence, action and mayhem leading up to a tense ending that had me holding my breath.

Affleck as a director is clear in his aim to make Boston its own character. Shots of the city are alternately beautiful and harrowing, depending on the neighborhood, and the ever-present accents never let us forget where they are.

He's also good at action scenes, getting just enough angles to keep it interesting without confusing us.

As for the performances, Jeremy Renner stands out as exceptionally evil, while Affleck appears sincere and conflicted at the life he's chosen vs. the life that was chosen for him.

Although it's a formulaic good-guy, bad-guy story, with the intent that the audience will root for the redeeming bad guy, I still enjoyed the ride and look forward to see what Affleck will come up with next.

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Deja Vu

On Tuesday, I saw Deja Vu starring Denzel Washington and Val Kilmer.

To put it simply, it's a fun ride.

Denzel dazzles as ATF good-cop Doug Carlin, who is recruited to help FBI agent Pryzwarra (Kilmer) investigate the bombing of a passenger ferry in present day New Orleans. The murder of a local (coincidentally beautiful) woman somehow ties into the mystery and Carlin becomes nearly obsessed with solving the crime.

When he learns of the FBI's time-traveling capabilities, he puts his own life on the line to take a quantum leap and save the girl. Oh - and the 543 people that died on the ferry too, including his partner.

The main flaw of the film is that it's painfully predictable. There are many Bruckheimer-typical explosions (Jerry produced the movie, you know). The scientists at the FBI are the funnier-than-usual brand and Denzel is nothing short of handsome the entire time, regardless of the situation. Come to think of it, even the terrorist is hot.

But if you can forgive all of that, watching this fast-paced murder mystery can be quite enjoyable.