The Town
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: September 17, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
38
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
A rich, dark, pulpy mess of entanglements that fulfills all the requirements of the genre, and is told with an ease and gusto that make the pulp tasty. Read full review
90
Boxoffice MagazinePete Hammond
If "Heat" and "The Departed" had a baby, the result might come close to The Town, a riveting and explosive crime thriller and one of the year's best pictures. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
As a thriller, The Town has what it takes and then some. Read full review
88
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike Scott
An exceedingly well-assembled genre picture, a spell-binding, edge-of-your-seat thriller. Read full review
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
An exciting and extremely well acted film. Even a nearly unrecognizable Blake Lively impresses in the key role of Jem's sister and Doug's sometime girlfriend. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Affleck and Hall make this unlikely love story palpably moving. And Renner (The Hurt Locker) is dynamite - he radiates ferocity and feeling. Read full review
88
PremiereMark Salisbury
It's the kind of smart, stylish, entertaining and grown-up movie that the studios are making less and less of these days. Read full review
88
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
It's the best heist picture since "Heat." Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Though the narrative is a conventional one, the well-acted, suspenseful story deals in fascinatingly murky morality and mines intriguing material from a historic and complex city. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
This second feature doesn't resonate with nearly as much power, but its suspenseful story of two generations of career criminals in the city's northerly Charlestown neighborhood has a similarly haunting quality. Read full review
80
Newsweek Caryn James
Affleck directed, stars in, and co-wrote The Town, a suspenseful, fiercely paced movie about bank robbers that is also about love, brotherhood, and the desperate need to escape a crooked life. It proves that "Gone Baby Gone," his accomplished directing debut, was no fluke. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
In The Town, he (Renner) doesn't signal that Jem is a sociopath... It's a deeply unnerving performance, beyond good or evil. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
Affleck is the center of the film. His Doug is, in some respects, rather like Affleck - the director of the elaborate heists, as well as a performer in them. Read full review
80
NPRJeannette Catsoulis
The trick to enjoying The Town, Ben Affleck's follow-up to his impressive 2007 directing debut, "Gone, Baby, Gone," is to expect nothing but pulpy entertainment. Read full review
80
MovielineMichelle Orange
The Town lacks Gone's operatic ambitions. And the irony is that that lack of a grand or even grandiose plan keeps this very good film from being a truly great one. Read full review
80
VarietyJustin Chang
The behind-the-camera talent Ben Affleck displayed so bracingly in "Gone Baby Gone" is confirmed, if not significantly advanced, in The Town. Again proving a fine director of actors (this time with himself in a starring role), Affleck delivers another potent, serious-minded slice of pulp set on Boston's meanest streets, where loyalty among thieves runs thicker than blood. Read full review
80
EmpireIan Freer
The Town is that rare beast, a grown-up genre flick, chock-full of compelling character dynamics and a clutch of pitch-perfect performances. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Affleck keeps the film as fluid as the "Mystic River," and never forgets that Renner is his ace in the hole. The "Hurt Locker" star charges up every scene he's in with feral power, and is rewarded with one of the most exciting sequences seen in any action movie this decade. Read full review
80
TimeMary Pols
It's rare to see an ensemble movie like this, so loaded with talented actors, in which virtually all of them get an opportunity to make an impression. Affleck is the boss and the star, but he knows how to share. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
A fast-paced, character-driven heist movie that combines robberies with romance and solidifies Affleck's reputation as an actor with a genuine gift for directing. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
There are good guys we don't care much about and bad guys that we do and even badder guys we're supposed to hate. But on the sliding scale of culpability, everybody's just a few clicks away from the next guy. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleAmy Biancolli
A first-class genre entry stacked with dandy performances and some crackerjack action to boot. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Like Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" or James Gray's "We Own the Night," The Town is a deliberately old-fashioned melodrama that echoes the pulpy mix of violence and romanticism of gangster films of the Thirties and Forties. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
Because of some sentimental backspin, Affleck doesn't quite hit it out of the park, but he may provoke the green monster of envy in lesser directors. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve Persall
The reclamation project that Ben Affleck calls a career continues with The Town, his second directing effort that would impress more if the first try weren't so terrific and visually similar. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The pieces and parts assembled herein are familiar, but the manner in which Affleck puts them together results in an engrossing two hours of cinema. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Everything is here. It's an effective thriller, he (Affleck) works closely with actors, he has a feel for pacing. Yet I persist in finding chases and gun battles curiously boring. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy Burr
A pretty decent crime drama - not a patch on the best parts of his directorial debut, 2007's "Gone Baby Gone,'' but it's moody and grim and engrossing if you approach it with the right expectations. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The Town might have amounted to something more than an occasionally good movie about crooks in trouble. There's a knife-edge here, but it's been blunted. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Because the tale is straightforward and conventional, it needed and got terrific acting. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Affleck's smooth, elegant directorial style is strong reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's: He takes his time establishing characters who are far more complex than they initially appear, then thrusts them into moral dilemmas with no easy outs. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Affleck is more interested in the people in the midst of the action than he is in the action itself, and that gives this accomplished genre piece considerable and compelling depth. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
It's a smart, bold genre exercise that's enormous fun to watch, harking back to gritty urban thrillers of the 1970s with an assured sense of tone and style. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
Affleck the movie director makes you truly, badly want his bunch of ne'er-do-wells to pull off their heists without a scratch, and you can't ask for much more than that. [20 Sept. 2010, p. 120]
70
Village VoiceNick Pinkerton
It's good enough at least that you wish it was better. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
A solid, minor entry in the annals of Boston crime drama. Not as florid as "The Departed" or as sadly soulful as "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" - or even as sticky and gamy as "Gone Baby Gone," Mr. Affleck's previous film. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubSam Adams
The movie's exterior is solid, but it's hollow inside, like a safe filled with air. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
I love Pete Postlethwaite as a rule, but here - as a murderous florist who pulls all the strings - he overacts his key scene so badly it's as if he did it on a dare. Also, Jon Hamm may rule on "Mad Men," but here he's stuck as a rather dimwitted FBI agent who's two beats behind the action, always. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden
Affleck gets the tribalism of Boston's traditionally Irish-American enclaves; it's a defining force in his character's lives. But for all their well-played grit, those characters resolutely remain types, and for all the well-choreographed action, the outcome doesn't matter nearly as much as it should. Read full review
40
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Given the debased standards of action cinema these days this might be enough to make The Town a hit. But almost everything else about the movie is badly off balance, starting with Affleck's decision to cast himself as the implacably sexy and good-hearted Doug. Read full review
40
SlateDana Stevens
An autopsy for The Town would list multiple causes of death. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith Uhlich
There's more than a few things off in this tale of a disillusioned professional thief (Affleck, dull), his unlikely inamorata (Hall, wasted) and the determined FBI agent (Hamm, solid) out to apprehend him. Read full review
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