A constant stream of new television and movie content invades our favorite platforms on almost a daily basis. In fact, the beginning of each month sort of acts as a reset as new original IP and popular films enter our carefully crafted queues. And beginning July 1st, you can add Ben Affleck’s The Town to that list, as it’ll be arriving on Netflix.
It’s arguably Affleck’s best film as a director, too. Sure, Argo may have won the Oscars, but The Town is a riveting bank robbery movie with terrific performances (particularly Jeremy Renner) and superb action sequences. We also get to see him right in his own backyard: Boston.
While his first feature behind the camera, Gone Baby Gone, is more of a morality tale about nature vs. nurture and the seedy underbelly of Boston, Affleck’s sophomore effort is a straight-forward crime movie that takes elements from Heat, The Departed and The Friends of Eddie Coyle and combines them into a spectacular ride.
The Town is certainly Ben’s most entertaining movie, too. A car chase in the middle of the film is riveting with our robbers wearing very memorable nun disguises. Shot practically, it involves driving down extremely narrow Boston streets and is both claustrophobic and kinetic. And they do all of it in a mini-van.
The finale, meanwhile, takes place at Fenway Park (Affleck is one of the few who could have pulled that off) and involves a ton of gunfire, and while isn’t quite on the same level as Heat (what movie is?), it’s still chaotic and visceral in its own way.
Now that Netflix have added Top 10 lists, which give us a better sense of what’s popular at the moment on the streaming service, some older movies or underseen ones are getting a second life. And while The Town was already a celebrated action film from the past decade, after it arrives on the platform next month, it will no doubt see an increase in popularity.