Rewatching The Town 15 Years Later: Does it Hold Up?
Personal tastes change over time. You can watch a movie when it first comes out, think it’s fantastic, then rewatch the same film years later and find it to be not nearly as good. Sometimes, for whatever reason, you’ll just connect with a particular film at a specific time.
I remember when Parasite came out in 2019 (which is somehow already six years ago). I loved that film and watched it back-to-back nights since I enjoyed it so much. That was before I started this website, but I would’ve definitely awarded Parasite a perfect 10/10 and named it as my best movie of that year. Well, I rewatched Parasite for the first time in years not too long ago. It’s still an above-average, high-quality movie, but I didn’t connect with it the same way I did just a few years ago. It’s a movie I still appreciate, but probably more of an 8/10. I wouldn’t rank it amongst my favorite films ever, that’s for sure.
The reverse of this can happen too. For whatever reason, I remember that when I originally watched 2006’s Children of Men, I didn’t care for it. It might’ve been that the film was a bit too overhyped at the time, and I found it to be a letdown. Well, when I rewatched it a few years ago I was surprised by how great it is and left wondering how I could’ve not appreciated it at all originally.
You don’t have to narrow it down to only an individual’s taste either. How we view (and how we remember movies) as entire collective film-going society changes over time too. In 2023 and 2024, when I did my Reviewing the Best Movies Ever Made series, I got some insight into this.
Some movies totally hold up and are still fantastic today – movies like Schindler’s List and The Shawshank Redemption. Other films in the series though, I found that not only did I not enjoy or find worthwhile, but I’d argue that the far majority of people today wouldn’t like them if they watched them now. I’m looking at you, Lawrence of Arabia and Gone with the Wind.
The bottom line: Tastes change. That goes for personal tastes and societal tastes. It’s because of this that I was curious to see what I’d think of 2010’s The Town watching it in 2025.
The Town, directed by and starring Ben Affleck, is a film that I loved when it was first released. It’s a movie that I found to be both supremely enjoyable and also of really high quality (a great combination). So, when I was searching for something to watch earlier this week and found it included in my Paramount+ subscription, I decided to give it a fresh viewing and see just what I thought of it.
Well, I’m happy to report that The Town holds up. It’s as good as I recalled it, though in some ways, it’s definitely different than I remembered it as well (just not in a negative way). What I had remembered mainly about The Town before this viewing was its excellent action scenes, and how cool (for lack of a better word) of a movie it was.
I didn’t think of The Town as being as much of a romance as it is. It’s a movie that was promoted as a neo-noir thriller, action motion picture. It certainly has all of those elements. However, what really ties the entire movie together is the romance between Ben Affleck’s character, Doug, and Rebecca Hall’s Claire. In fact, that’s really what’s really at the heart of the movie.
After tracking down Claire to keep an eye on her, as she was the bank manager on Doug’s crews most recent robbery, Doug ends up falling for her. She falls for him too, and Affleck and Hall have good, believable chemistry with one another. Their scenes are what really sells the movie.
There’s obviously some suspension of disbelief that needs to happen when the story you’re following involves an expert bank robber falling for someone he’s stolen from. If the acting between these characters isn’t great, the movie is going feel really ridiculous and super farfetched. What makes The Town work is that these do feel like actual people.
Affleck is believable as a street-smart criminal with a darker past who wants to reform his ways and is inspired to ultimately do so after meeting Claire. You don’t often see The Town described as a crime drama thriller romance, but that’s really what it is – this is a movie that falls into a bunch of genres.
Another thing that changed for me with this viewing of The Town was seeing the movie as a bit of a time capsule. The Town feels very 2010. You know how when you put on a movie from the 70s and it just feels so 70s; well, this is like that but for 2010. Just the fashion, style, and really the entire vibe of The Town brings you back to 15 years ago. It doesn’t work against the film in any way, but it’s definitely noticeable.
It wouldn’t be fair to write an article about The Town without mentioning the performance of Jermey Renner as Doug’s best friend/fellow criminal, Jem. Renner’s sort of made the main thing in his career playing Hawkeye in all of the Avengers movie, but he can really act. Renner’s hotheaded character could feel over-the-top in less talented hands, but here he feels realistic and sometimes frightening.
At barely over two hours in length, The Town is expertly paced and enthralling throughout. This is the type of movie that would be half an hour longer if it were made today, with unnecessary additional scenes about the FBI agents after Doug’s crew or something like that. As it is, the movie has narrowed its focus to the relationships between Doug and Claire and Doug and Jem, and then the heist scenes.
The Town is a great film that holds up 15 years later. My personal tastes might have changed somewhat over the last decade and a half, but they’re still such that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. If you haven’t watched it recently, or if you somehow missed it when it first came out, The Town is definitely worth your time.
Grade: 10/10