The Town: Can I date a witness?

Based on a novel by Chuck Hogan, Ben Affleck’s sophomore directorial effort falls in that middle-ground between better than his detractors would presume and worse than his defenders would hope. Among the virtues common to most good heist movies is economy, sticking closely to the mechanics of the scheme while characters develop quietly in the margins. The Town is most problematic when it lingers too long in those margins, especially the fairly preposterous love story between Affleck’s career robber and the bank manager, played by Rebecca Hall, who he and his crew just kidnapped. The crew wore masks so Hall doesn’t realize that Affleck was her kidnapper—this could have been a way more interesting movie if she did and dated him anyway—and enters into a romance with him that consists almost entirely of Dunkin Donuts dates or hanging out at her place and exchanging over-rehearsed monologues about their personal baggage. His obviously, are heavily censored.

None of the central characters feel worth investing in even after they’re ostensibly fleshed out. Jeremy Renner plays Affleck’s partner-in-crime, your token loose cannon—he thinks he’s James Cagney in White Heat, where Affleck thinks he’s James Cagney in Angels Have Dirty Faces—always sniffing around for an excuse to snuff somebody, another adrenaline junky on the heels of Renner’s acclaimed performance in The Hurt Locker, and a character blatantly constructed as a plot device. I was very excited to see Mad Men’s Jon Hamm in a meaty big screen role, but his g-man never gets to do much besides reiterate his cold determination to nail the crooks terrorizing Boston.

Which is arguably the fifth central character in The Town, named after the Charlestown district which the opening title card describes as a Petrie dish for bank robbers, working men dutifully following in their father’s footsteps, contributing whatever small innovations are needed to maintain the family trade over changing times. That makes bank robbing sound somewhat similar to genre filmmaking, but The Town only partially feels like a solid genre exercise. Affleck’s pretty good with the action bits and his camera work shows genuine affection and sensitivity to his fellow actors, but there’s a significant miscalculation as to how many narrative clichés any one movie can carry without buckling over, including the absurd recklessness shown from both the cops and the robbers during the final shoot-out. So take this as a conditional recommendation: The Town is disappointing for its flawed and flabby script, but there’s enough energy generated in the hold-ups, stake-outs and chases to keep you from feeling completely robbed.

Super-fluous: Kick-Ass

Teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) tires of bribing bullies, lusting after babes who ignore him, and jerking off over National Geographic, so he buys a diving suit online and becomes a superhero. He gets his ass kicked, which only makes him tougher, but he still lacks the skills to take on serious scumbags, so Dave, alias Kick-Ass, joins forces with Damon Macready, alias Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), an ex-cop and ex-con hell-bent on exacting revenge on a local crime lord for ruining his life, and Mindy Macready, alias Hit-Girl (Chloë Moretz), Damon’s adorable 11-year-old daughter. We first meet this curious pair when Big Daddy is firing a round into his darling child's chest (she's wearing a vest) in some abandoned lot. Both are highly trained, armed to the teeth, and eager to slaughter.

The thing about Kick-Ass, adapted from Mark Millar’s comic, is that it presents itself as irreverent, quirky, and iconoclastic, the story of an ordinary goofy youth who hurls himself absurdly and recklessly into harm’s way. But the promise of not-another-superhero movie is thwarted by an over-stuffed plot that’s finally exactly like every other superhero movie, complete with extra-gory spectacle, fantastic technology, multiple deus ex machinas, and that final bit where the surviving villain vows to return, offering abundant franchise investments. Kick-Ass is supremely conservative in both senses, falling in line with genre clichés and oozing ultra-right wing vigilante revenge fantasy.

If Kick-Ass were more adolescent comedy and less bloated actioner it might have distinguished itself. Dave’s relationship with a girl who only becomes his friend because she thinks he’s gay could have been developed into something fun and insightful. The movie succeeds more with the smaller items than the grandiose ones, with imaginative little details like the duct-taped busted window at the school entrance, the dorky dinosaur stickers on Dave’s full-length mirror, or the poster announcing a band called Frantic Yogurt. However, the use of Toronto as a stand-in for New York reaches unintentionally hilarious heights of implausibility, with glimpses of Tim Horton’s and Country Style and umpteen car shots where our hero simply drives up and down Yonge Street past Dundas Square and the big HMV over and over. I’m surprised they managed to keep the CN Tower out of the establishing shots.