1/50x2: The Town

History is sometimes bound to repeat itself.

In the case of Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck), it begins to mirror that of his father, Stephen (Chris Cooper) in the Affleck directed The Town.

Doug is a crook, like his father before him, but so far Doug has been one step ahead of the law, unlike his father, who is now serving life in prison.

Doug isn't alone, he has a trio of good friends that help him out, including his best friend James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner). Doug is the brains of the operation, he strategically maps out the perfect heists as to not get hurt and not get caught.

During one such heist, James takes the bank manager Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) as a hostage, only to release her once they are far enough away. However, James becomes paranoid that Claire may know something and could turn them in, so Doug 'runs into her' to find out the truth.

Well, one thing leads to another and all of a sudden Claire and Doug are falling for each other - talk about a perfect couple?

James, who has been to jail before, finds out and he becomes increasingly unstable - forcing Doug to do a heist even though it isn't foolproof.

All the while, Det. Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) believes that he has figured out that Doug's gang was behind the robberies in town, but he needed the evidence to arrest them.

Behind these worker bees is a mastermind, the florist Fergie Colm (Pete Postlethwaite). When Doug confronts him about getting out, Fergie threatens to hurt those he loves.

The final heist is to rob a sacred Boston landmark, Fenway Park. As they prepare, James tells Doug that he has no plans of going to jail - if things go wrong he plans on having a shootout.

The film also stars Blake Lively as Krista Coughlin, who while watching the film doesn't really have much going on, except being a junkie. However, she becomes more and more important as the film roles on.

I thought this was a good way to start my second 50 films list. A great heist movie (although I would have liked a few more heists). But, the overall story was just as good as the heists. I am not sure the hatred for Affleck - sure he has had some missteps, but as of late he has truly done very well for himself. Here he shines as well.

Grade: