Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you a crime,
drama, thriller film from 2010, titled The Town. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
The neighborhood of Charlestown Boston is known for its high amount of bank robberies all year
long. Four longlife friends are particularly good at it: Doug, Jem , Gloansy , and Dez. Doug
is the brain behind their plans, and he tells the other three all the details they need to memorize
without fail before their next operation. When a guard enters the bank carrying a money bag,
they take the chance to push him and enter with him, immediately taking control of the
situation. Every person present is thrown to the ground, their cellphones are taken, and after
the thieves empty the cashier station, they make manager Claire Keesey open the vault. After taking
all the money and putting the security cameras' hard drives in a microwave to destroy them, the
thieves start pouring bleach all over the place to take care of any possible DNA proof, unaware
that Claire is pressing a silent alarm button with her foot until it is too late. When they
finally notice, Jem beats up the assistant manager believing it was him, and as he violently moves,
Claire gets to see his neck tattoo. Seeing as the police are about to surround them, Jem decides
to take Claire with them as a hostage, which is something they never do. They blindfold her before
taking off their masks and once they are far enough from the bank, they drop her at the beach,
not needing her anymore. The crime scene is taken over by the FBI, with Special Agent Adam Frawley
in charge. He can see the thieves took care of every possible detail and left no evidence behind,
which means they must be professionals. His men also find the van they used for the robbery,
but it has been lit on fire and nobody in the neighborhood is willing to speak as a witness.
The next day, Frawley interrogates Claire, who tells him the little she knows and omits the
tattoo detail because the thieves have threatened to kill her if she gives the FBI any information.
Meanwhile, the four thieves get together to discuss Jem's awful idea of taking a hostage,
but when he arrives, he brings worse news: he has Claire's ID and has noticed she lives near them,
so she will see him in the neighborhood often. He thinks he should follow her
around and make sure she is scared enough not to talk, but Doug takes over and says he will
do it because Jem has already been to jail once and he can't afford a second strike,
but in truth, he will do it because he doesn't trust how violent Jem has been lately.
Afterward, Doug and Jem go around the neighborhood to do all necessary payments to their gun dealer,
their car dealer, and Fergie, an Irish mobster whose front is a flower shop.
Then they spend the evening drinking, gambling, and taking drugs with callgirls.
The following night, the four of them are having a drink at a bar when they are approached by Kris,
Jem's sister and a single mother. She and Doug used to be together, and she says she misses him,
but Doug doesn't want anything to do with her and leaves. Some hours later however,
when Doug is watching tv at his place, Kris lets herself in with her old copy of the keys and
makes love to him on the couch. The next day, Doug starts following Claire around and enters
the laundromat after her. When she starts crying because she finds faded bloodstains on her shirt,
he takes the chance to make contact, pretending to comfort her. To make her feel better, he takes
her out for a drink. They chat and bond, although Doug lies and tells her he works in construction
and that his dad lives in the suburbs instead of being in prison. Then he takes her on a boat ride,
claiming it belongs to a friend, but actually he is breaking in just for this. When she
asks him about all the bank robbers that live in Charlestown, he just says stories are exaggerated.
The following day, when Doug meets with Jem, he tells him he has Claire under control and that she
doesn't need to be killed. After interrogating and beating up a criminal contact of his,
Frawley gets a clue: these thieves didn't do trucks like others, they knew how to work the box.
This kind of knowledge can only be acquired while working somewhere like Vericom, so they start
looking into work records and employee profiles. Frawley also meets Claire for lunch to ask her
some more questions and tries to flirt with her, but she mentions she is already sort of seeing
someone. Claire and Doug start going out together, a fact Doug keeps hidden from his gang. The closer
they become, the more they share about each other. Claire admits she is working with the FBI,
and Doug pretends to be simply curious to ask her if they have any possible suspects.
She also mentions the tattoo she saw, which she doesn't know if bringing up to Frawley because
if it may get her killed. Doug advises her to keep it a secret for now as a card she can play later,
especially if it means avoiding witness protection. In return, Doug shares that
his mom left him when he was six and he tried to find her, but his dad never did anything about it.
During one of their dates, Claire talks about having to take the long way to way to work because
some gang members throw bottles at her vehicle if she takes the normal road. So after dropping her
at her home, Doug picks up Jem and together they go intimidate the assaulters. Doug only beats them
up and plants some drugs, telling them to leave before the week ends, but Jem gets too much into
it and shoots the guy's leg before taking off his mask and showing him his face. Doug isn't happy
with how violent Jem has been lately. Meanwhile, Frawley finds Dez's file as a Vericom employee,
whose sick days match the dates of various bank robberies. This allows them to follow him into a
family barbecue and discover the identities of the whole gang, although they still are missing hard
evidence to catch them. For now, Frawley orders his agents to keep surveillance on all of them.
While having lunch together on a sunny day, Claire tells Doug that this weather reminds
her of the day her brother died. When she leaves the table for a moment to go to the restroom,
Jem suddenly shows up and sits with Doug, who is now worried he will find out his secret so he
tries to make him leave to no avail. Claire comes back and while Jem is clearly shocked to see her,
he still plays along and chitchats for a bit before leaving as Doug makes sure to say goodbye
to him as an excuse to cover the tattoo with his hand. Later, Jem confronts Doug about her,
thinking it is a terrible idea to sleep with the person that could send them to jail.
He hasn't told the others, but he wants Doug to do something about it and contrate on their next
operation instead. Doug doesn't think they are ready for their next robbery because he doesn't
like the guys they will be working with, so they should find someone else. Jem insists, however,
so Doug gives in under one condition: this will be his last job. Afterward, he goes to see his
father in prison to tell him he may be going away for a while and ask him why he never looked
for his mother. His father replies that there is no point in trying to make a mother out of
someone who clearly doesn't want to be one. When Friday comes, it is time for their next operation.
They get some hair from a hair salon to plant as fake evidence, wash themselves thoroughly,
and clean all their equipment with bleach so it doesn't have fingerprints on it.
Then they take the car to follow an armored truck and rob it as soon as it parks.
Things go smoothly at first, but one of the guards tries to fight back and aims his gun at them.
The police are also coming after them, so as not to waste any more time, they kill
the guard and go back to the car, driving away as fast as possible not to get caught.
They cause many crashes in the way, and when the cops finally corner them, they shoot them
too before driving back and escaping through the way they come. This time Gloansy tries some risky
driving moves that allow him to make the police cars crash against each other, and they finally
get to lose them when they find their fourth team member waiting for them in another car,
so they change vehicles and light the previous car on fire, blocking the way for the cops.
Frawley, who is following the case from his office, orders the police to close the bridge,
but it is too late: the thieves cross it before the cops get there. As they change vehicles again,
they are seen by a random officer that is parked nearby, but he turns a blind eye on them.
While they don't have any legitimate proof to use yet, Frawley wants to at least talk to them,
so he sends his men to bring the four of them in for interrogation. After making
them read the lines the thieves said to the victims, Frawley tries to ask some questions,
but Jem simply stays silent after requesting a lawyer, and Doug, knowing they have nothing on
him, tells him they have always known they have been followed by the FBI because everyone knows
what their antennas look like. Frawley's next move is to try to get some clues from Claire again,
but when he calls the bank, he finds out she has quit. Getting suspicious of her now,
he makes his men tap her phone and learns she has been in contact with Doug all this time. Doug also
learns she quit when he meets with her to give her a diamond necklace, so he takes the chance to ask
her to go away with him, which she accepts. After their date is over, Claire is visited by Frawley,
who notices the necklace before showing her Doug's profile and telling her the truth.
Meanwhile, Doug meets with Jem, who has a new job from Fergie, but Doug turns it down and tells him
to find someone else because he is done. This enrages Jem, who accuses him of abandoning Kris
and her baby, but Doug reminds him nobody knows who the father is and while heis thankful Jem's
family took him in as a kid, it was never going to be the three of them happily playing house. Jem
points out that he once killed a guy to protect Doug and went to prison for nine years for it,
but Doug isn't touched: he still turns down the job. He then goes to see Fergie to inform him of
this as well, but Fergie doesn't want anybody else because Doug is the real brain here.
Doug's father went solo many years ago, too, and that is why Fergie hooked his mother up with
drugs. She never left, she died of overdoses, and Doug has been lied to all this time.
If he doesn't accept the job, Fergie threatens to do to Claire the same thing he did to his mom.
Doug rushes to Claire's place to check she is fine, but she kicks him out and doesn't let him
apologize or explain. From then on, he tries to keep an eye on her apartment and sees one
of Fergie's thugs hang a funeral wreath on her door. Doug destroys it as he finally accepts he
will have no choice but to accept this job. After visiting Kris to tell her he will be gone after
this job, Doug tries to approach Claire again and promises he will never hurt her, because he has
robbed many banks but he has never killed anyone, then asks her to wait for him before leaving.
The gang gets together to hear Fergie's plan: he has inside information to rob Fenway Park,
and they will do it the morning after the big game, when their safes will be full. While they
go over the details, Frawley approaches Kris at a bar, thinking she may be the weak link in the
family. After fake-flirting with her, he shows her his badge and implies he knows she is a mule for
Fergie. When she asks for a lawyer, he makes his move and sows the seed of discord by pointing out
that even if she was together with Doug for many years, he never bought her a diamond necklace.
Kris gives him a fake lead, so the day of the operation, Frawley and his men follow the wrong
truck while Kris visits Doug to ask him to take her with him because she also wants a new life,
but Doug kicks her out after telling her he is leaving with someone else.
Frawley finds her later in the hospital after she crashed her car while under the influence,
and he promises he will find protection for her and her kid in exchange for information.
Feeling as she is always getting used, she gives in and tells her about Fenway Park.
While Dez uses his electrician knowledge to disable the alarms and security cameras, Doug
and Jem dress up as cops and are allowed inside the stadium by a contact of Fergie's. They come
across some employees and guards, but their police act doesn't work out and soon they are taking out
their guns and making the men lower themselves to the floor so they can tie them up. Next,
they go up to the cash room and tell the employees to open the door and not to make a distress call
because they have men outside their homes and they will shoot their wives if they try anything.
Obviously they are allowed to come in, and after filling their bags with as much money as possible,
they leave through the parking lot, where Gloansy and Dez are waiting for them with an ambulance.
The FBI is already surrounding the perimeter, but as soon as Jem sees them trying to sneak in,
he opens fire on them. A shootout between thieves and agents begins, and Gloansy gets shot in the
middle of it, but at least they got him on the vest. While the other three continue to shoot,
Dez sneaks back and opens the door so they can push the truck with the agents out of there.
After he closes the door again, Doug tells Dez that unlike the others, he doesn't have a police
record, so he can walk out and get only seven years and none of them would blame him for it.
Dez, however, feels rather insulted by this and stays after throwing the f-word at Doug. The FBI
throws some stun grenades through the windows then and while the thieves' senses are compromised,
they send special agents inside that shoot Dez as soon as he stands up. Gloansy decides to go for a
very risky plan: he will drive out and keep the FBI's attention on him while Doug and Jem change
back into their cop costumes and simply walk away through the main door because the FBI won't
be looking for police officers. Doug worries about Gloansy's safety if he goes out there, but Gloansy
promises he is a great driver and knows how to escape. The ambulance goes out and manages to
drive down the block without issues, but when the FBI can't stop it by just shooting at its wheels,
a sniper kills Gloansy by getting him on the head. While the FBI checks out the ambulance,
thinking all the thieves will be there, Doug and Jem successfully change into their cop
uniforms and easily escape by mingling with other officers. The trick doesn't last long, however:
the FBI receives information from the employees that had been tied up inside, saying they had been
ambushed by cops, so Frawley immediately starts looking around for officers behaving suspiciously.
He quickly notices Jem walking away fast with a big bag over his shoulder and follows him into a
parking lot. As soon as Frawley calls him by his name, Jem opens fire on him, and soon he finds
himself surrounded by the FBI and cops while Doug watches from across the street. Frawley manages
to wound Jem on the leg, so he hides behind a mailbox, only to realize he is out of bullets.
Refusing to go back to jail, he commits suicide by walking out with his guns in hand, causing the
agents to shoot him on the spot. Doug doesn't let his sacrifice be in vain and escapes by stealing
a police car while everyone is busy checking on Jem's body. He drives to the flower shop and kills
both Fergie and his thug, not getting hurt in return because he is wearing a bulletproof vest.
Afterward, Doug recovers some money he had hidden and calls Claire, who has the FBI with her in the
apartment listening to her conversation. Claire asks him to come over, claiming she is alone,
but Doug knows she is lying because he is watching the apartment from a neighbor building.
He still accepts to go, though, asking her to meet him at the back door in an hour.
After he apologizes again to her, Claire mentions "sunny days" as a subtle clue to let him know it
is all a trap, and Doug plays along. While the FBI waits with Claire for someone that won't arrive,
Doug hides some money in her garden and leaves a note on Frawley's car,
insulting him. Then he leaves the city by train while wearing an MBTA uniform.
Frawley is suspicious of Claire's "sunny days" line, but it is too cryptic for him to use as
evidence of anything and Claire is free of any possible charges. Days later, she finds the money
Doug left for her with a note saying one day they may see each other again. She decides to
donate it to refurbish the local ice hockey arena where Doug once played in memory of his mother.