The Town

[Readers Beware:  Spoiler Alert!]

Steve and I went to see another movie.  The Town, with Ben Affleck.  I highly recommend it.  It’s a juicy one!  Ben Affleck is good.  The whole cast is good.  It’s got good writing, there’s fantastic tension, there are great characters, there’s a car chase that’s great not because of all the crashes, and it really grabs you and gets you involved.  My guess is it’ll be considered a good movie.  But those aren't the things I remember most about it.

I like to think I’m a principled gal.  I mean, I take stands on things.  Maybe not big issues, but still.  Like not shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch due to their (imo) sleazy ads that suggest inappropriate behavior to impressionable teens.  (Not a popular decision in my house, where suddenly everyone seems to want things from there—even Steve lists their men’s cologne as his all-time favorite).  Or never looking at the cars as I drive by an accident, on the theory that I wouldn’t want someone staring at me, or worse, my mom or dad, if they were in a bad way.  So before this movie started, we were treated to an ad—on the giant movie screen, mind you--for Calvin Klein men’s underwear.  It shows lots of hunky men, clad only in snug-fitting underwear, looking down, saying things like, “Do you wanna see my (bleep)?” (actual words bleeped in the ad) and “It’s all about the (bleeping) Calvins.”  And, “Hey, eyes up here.  You wanna see more?”  All accompanied by a provocative snap of the waistband.  I’m not making this up.  It was obscene and totally sleazy, all in the guise of being cool as ice.  How can this be okay?  It makes me crazy.  Crazy, I tell you.  So just before the movie started, I leaned over to Steve and whispered, “Now we have to boycott Calvin Klein.”  So I like to think I’m a principled gal who stands behind her beliefs. 

But after seeing this movie, I’m not feeling so smug about me and my ironclad principles.  Now that’s a good movie!

The lights go out, and the movie begins.  It’s a really moody movie about residents of a blue collar neighborhood outside of Boston where bank robberies and armored car heists are a way of life, where life is hard in the projects but it's even harder to get out, and generations have been following in the family footsteps, and those steps lead smack dab into the middle of a life of crime

Ben Affleck (“Doug”) and his buddies live in that neighborhood.  They’re bank robbers.  The movie opens with a spectacular bank heist, and we have front row seats.  Their plan comes off like clockwork, obviously prepared down to the smallest detail.  They wear masks, which means no one can identify them, which in turn means no one has to get killed.  (Heck, I support that.)  Just a simple robbery.  This is their standard M.O.  But this time around, there’s a hitch.  One of the thieves, who we later discover is a loose cannon who’s already done nine years in prison, loses control and attacks one of the bank employees.  One of his partners in crime stops him, but not before he also drags Claire, the lovely young bank manager, out with them to use as a hostage if necessary.  Luckily for Claire, it doesn’t become necessary, and they release her without her ever seeing their faces.  The masks, remember?

All is not fine for long, however.  Their certainty that Claire knows nothing becomes a bit shaky when they discover she lives just a few blocks from them, and they realize she may actually run into them from time to time.  Doug, being the natural leader, volunteers to discreetly check her out to determine whether she knows more than they (and she) think she does.  He follows her to the Laundromat, chats her up, and is relieved to see that no alarms are going off in her head as her clothes tumble.  But by time the last item is folded, the die has been cast:  not only does Doug realize the toll their little bank escapade has taken on her personally, but he is smitten.  He invites her out for a drink, she accepts and, well, you can guess the rest.  Doug and Claire become an item and fall in love, and all the while she has no idea who he really is.  

The story is intriguing; I was totally engrossed.  But here’s the fun part.  We’ve got bank robbers who violently rob a bank.  We’ve got an innocent working girl who falls for a nice guy—who just happens to be one of those bank robbers. We’re shown both sides of the law:  the law enforcement side, and the bank robbers side.  And which side did I land on in this moral dilemma?  On the side of the bank robbers.  The criminals.  The law-breakers.  I found myself wondering, What would I do if I fell for a criminal?  A bank robber.  A law-breaker.  I’d like to say, based on the principles I’ve always been so clear about, that I’d tell him I couldn’t become involved, that I can’t have that kind of choice happening in my life.  That maybe I’d even turn him in.  I mean, after all, he’s broken the law.  And that’s wrong, I’m pretty definite about that.  You don’t break the law.  And if you do, you take responsibility and accept the repercussions.  I always believed it’s a pretty clear line for me.  (Hey, I’ve had a speeding ticket or two in my time, and I’ve never tried to talk anyone out of it; I did it, I get the ticket.  Simple stuff.)

But here I was, rooting for the bank robber without hesitation.  Rooting against that darn wily FBI guy.  I did not want Doug to get caught.  I didn’t want Claire to turn him in when she inevitably found out.  I didn’t even want Claire to dump him when she found out.  Yeah, I would have liked it if he returned the money he stole, but regardless, I did not want Doug going to jail.  Not Doug!  Because, hey, he was a victim of his upbringing.  Of his neighborhood, even.  (“The bank robbery capital of America,” the movie posters declare.)  This is a good guy!  He committed a few robberies, I know, but within those parameters, he’s kept to his own moral code:  you don’t kill, you don’t harm anyone, and you stand up for your friends no matter what.  Within that framework, Doug is an honorable guy.  This stuff is supposed to be black and white, but it just wasn’t.  I love that. 

Doug even tried to make good; he left the neighborhood and became a professional hockey player.  But that didn’t pan out as he’d planned, and so he came back to his roots.  And those roots were of the criminal variety.  He even tried to get out a second time, after he fell in love with Claire.  But one of his partners in crime, his lifelong friend whose family took him in as one of their own when he was left alone as a child, for heaven’s sake, made it clear that to do that would be to betray everything they’d been through together.  Holy smokes, the lines are blurring all over the place.

It’s easy for someone like me to have strong principles that I stand on.  Things like not shopping at a cool store.  Wow.  Impressive, I know.  But I’ve had a pretty easy life.  I didn't grow up in the projects; I grew up in a middle class family, with nice parents and a nice brother and sister, and lived in neighborhoods that were just fine, and went to schools that never even considered having cops stationed at any of the doors.  I never had these kinds of dilemmas to deal with.  Or even think about, really.

But here comes Doug, who is a really good guy, at heart.  I mean, Claire fell for him easily, and no one in the theatre wondered why.  Certainly not me!  But he’s done a bad thing.  Many bad things.  So now I’m just wondering about all this.  What do you do when a good person does a bad thing?  I mean, is prison for everyone who breaks the law?  Or is it just for “bad” people?  I’m a very conservative gal, personally and politically.  I do believe it’s fair to consider someone’s circumstances when doling out a sentence.  But I’ve always thought that’s just something to use in mitigation of the sentence, not in determining whether they’re found guilty or not.  And I’m pretty sure I still believe that.  But boy, how interesting it is to have your principles put to the test in a “real-life” (well, a movie-life) situation.  Do they stand up?  I think so.  But suddenly I’m not 100% certain.  On paper, the appropriate result is so clear to me.  In theatre, the line has somehow blurred.  And I love that. 

Now I know this isn’t groundbreaking stuff.  I’ve seen it in other movies and I’ve enjoyed being manipulated lots of times.  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid comes to mind.  And a zillion others, I’m sure.  But it was more personal this time around.  Is it because it was so serious?  Because it involved a girl--an actual victim of their crime--and her innocent personal relationship with a crook?  The fact that she became involved before she knew who he really was?  Yes, yes, and yes.  Or maybe that's what a really great movie does.  Or maybe it was just the mood I was in that day.  Whatever the explanation, it made for a fabulous afternoon.

At the end, we hear Doug’s voiceover talking to Claire, telling her he’s going to be paying for what he did for a long, long time.  And then we see him all alone, somewhere far, far away, pensively staring out into a harsh but beautiful landscape.  I mentioned to Steve that that didn’t seem like very harsh payment to me, but Steve pointed out his prison was “in here,” pointing to his head.  I know, I know.  I get it.  But is that enough?  Shouldn’t he be in prison?  I kind of think so.  But I'm not sure.  What do you do with a good guy who does some bad things?  It’s a hard question.

After the movie, as the credits were rolling, I leaned over to Steve and asked another hard question.  “What do you do if you fall in love with a criminal?” I whispered.  His answer?  “Love him.”  Boy did I pick the right guy.  Now keep your fingers crossed he doesn't go rob a bank.

And that’s just my humble (and always correct) opinion.