Seth Lamey
Throughout film history, many actors have transitioned their creative impulses from in front of the camera to behind it, taking the director’s chair to execute their artist visions. Orson Welles was famously able to do both at once from the start of his career. Others reinvented their legacies: Clint Eastwood, Ron Howard, Jordan Peele, Greta Gerwig, and of course the recently deceased Robert Redford fall into the category of actors who found their ultimate calling as directors, and Ben Affleck is a curious case of a once-fallen leading man who reinvigorated his artistic cachet in Hollywood circles once he stepped behind the camera. His directorial debut in 2007, Gone Baby Gone, was a well received success commercially and critically, showcasing the former actor as an interesting new voice. His second effort in 2010, The Town, verified that he was a serious talent behind the camera who could resurrect a once promising acting career that had veered off course.
Much like his debut film Gone Baby Gone, The Town anchors its neo-noir crime drama in a familiar location for Affleck: his home area of Boston, Massachusetts. An adaptation of Chuck Hogan’s 2004 novel Prince of Thieves based on notorious bank robbery hotspots “Charlestown,” the film follows Affleck as Doug MacCray, as washed-up hockey player who never could escape the family business: bank heists. MacCray comes from a family that had his father (Chris Cooper) locked up for robbery, his mother addicted to drugs and long-lost, he and his friends and lovers (Blake Lively) controlled by the neighborhood “Florist” (Pete Postlethwaite). After a bank robbery opens the film, he becomes enamored with witness/victim Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) and hopes to plan his getaway from the his dangerous life in Charlestown, while also being pursued by tenacious FBI agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm). The Town tackles themes of suspect moralities between criminals and law enforcements. It also focuses on forbidden love, cyclical trauma, and trouble within working class neighborhoods.
Affleck’s journey to film directing didn’t come from nowhere, as his first big impact in Hollywood was winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with longtime Boston friend and fellow actor Matt Damon for 1997’s Good Will Hunting. Affleck was cast as a leading man for the era after starring in numerous Michael Bay action films. He also would act in several small time comedies for friend/director Kevin Smith, as well as taking the lead in the superhero film Daredevil. None of these did much for his reputation as an actor; meanwhile, he became a constant focus of tabloid media with on-and-off relationships with fellow actors Jennifer Lopez and Jennifer Garner. By the mid-2000s, Affleck’s career as an actor had stalled.
His shift to directing with 2007s Gone Baby Gone would put him back on notice with critics and audiences alike. A neo-noir crime thriller set in his hometown of Boston, the film showed quality control behind the camera and use of a strong ensemble of actors to tell a missing child storyline with twists and turns to thrill. When it was announced that Ben Affleck would direct a bank heist film set in Boston as well, anticipation to see how he would execute his sophomore effort was palpable.
The Town brings to life Affleck’s love and affection for centering blue-collar Boston just as he did with Gone Baby Gone. He cast his brother Casey Affleck as one of the leads in Gone Baby Gone bringing a naturalistic accent and grit to the cast needed for that film, and in The Town he handles that job himself as Doug MacCray. He and co-star Blake Lively spent time researching local bars and restaurants to pin down correct accents and behaviors of working class Boston. Jeremy Renner stars as loose-cannon “Gem” of the bank heist crew, and he also interviewed local bank robbers that the film was based on to get a feel for character development. Affleck’s influences for The Town are obvious in previous Boston centric crime dramas Mystic River and The Departed, but its Michael Mann’s 1995 bank heist thriller Heat that shows through the most. Much like Heat, The Town features well-prepared criminals setting up scores while being chased by obsessive law enforcement, two sides of the same coin. Affleck doesn’t convey quite as serious of a tone as Mann did in Heat, but the dramatic cues are strong nonetheless and the action shooting style brings similar thrills.
Now with five films under his belt, Affleck shakes up his key crew members quite often, which doesn’t give his films any discernible surface-level aesthetic style. However, he has frequently collaborated with musical composer Harry Gregson-Williams, who with The Town oscillates between moving dramatic beats with thrills of bank robbery action. Veteran cinematographer Robert Elswit brought his steady hand to the compositions of The Town, capturing the suburban landscape and interiors with the appropriate look Affleck was aiming for. Action scenes are frenetic and exciting, with handheld cameras and long tracking shots covering all the angles of suspense.
The Town has three big set pieces for action, with the opening bank robbery in skeletal masks and the second act “nun costumes” dazzling as visual cues and a nod to Kathryn Bigelow’s bank heist film Point Break. The third act climax with the “one last job” cliche takes place at Fenway Park and ends in a blaze of glory, with most of MacRay’s crew being killed. Such dramatic build-up and explosion is a staple in both westerns and noir/neo-noir films. Affleck has such affection for MacCray that he can’t come to terms having him caught or killed, instead living in the isolation of Florida living with the guilt of his sins but also the hope that how he left Claire and Charlestown can be his absolution. Finally free from the control of The Florist and wild behavior of his best friend “Gem”, he feels like he escaped the fate of both his parents and made things right with Claire (gifting her the millions that she donates to fix up the hockey rink in his mothers honor.)
Affleck’s strongest skills as a film maker are his screenwriting, his ability to craft compelling drama, and his work with actors. He has been able to attract strong ensemble casts for most of his films, and The Town catches Jon Hamm during his star rise in the acclaimed TV show Mad Men. Jeremy Renner caught the attention of Hollywood with his performance in the Oscar winning The Hurt Locker and his fiery turn as “Gem” in The Town gained him a supporting actor nomination at the Academy Awards and would lead him to his role as “Hawkeye” in the Avengers films. Rebecca Hall brought an innocence and graceful performance as Claire that she has plenty of times before and since. Blake Lively, Pete Postlethwaite, and Chris Cooper turned in professional and realistic performances to round out the stellar cast. Affleck also, as he does in most of his films, delivers a strong performance himself (à la Clint Eastwood): acting while directing is no easy task.
The Town was a box office hit, earning $150 million and a strong critical consensus of “Tense, smartly written, and wonderfully cast, The Town proves that Ben Affleck has rediscovered his muse—and that he’s a director to be reckoned with” on Rotten Tomatoes. Jeremy Renner was the only Academy Award nomination for the film but it was on numerous “Top 10” lists and won a National Board of Review selection for the film and cast.
After the success of The Town, Affleck earned his peers and critics’ respect as a director of well-made, well-acted movies that struck a chord with audiences looking for authentic reflections of gripping stories that still holds true fifteen years later. His third film Argo would be prove apex as a filmmaker thus far. The political espionage thriller was a hit with audiences and critics, culminating with a Best Picture win. Affleck won nearly every directing award that circuit but oddly enough wasn’t nominated for the Oscar.
Still, his reputation as a good actor-turned-director helped usher in a new era for his acting career. He would pair up with auteurs after the success of The Town and Argo. Terrance Malick’s To the Wonder, David Fincher’s Gone Girl, and Gavin O’Connor’s The Way Back would give the re-invigorated Affleck respect as a lead actor once again. His emotionally dual performance in The Town would also rope him back into the superhero realm, with Zack Snyder taking notice to cast him as Batman in Batman v. Superman and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. His two subsequent films following Argo, 2016’s Live by Night and 2023’s Air had less success that his earlier work, but with more directorial work due out this decade Affleck’s work behind the camera will fill out and his legacy as a film maker might shift for better or worse.
