Newsweek heaps praise on Affleck for The Town

Newsweek says, “The Town may feel breezy and escapist, but it displays Affleck‚Äôs signature style: deep, unobtrusive realism.”

Affleck’s heist movie The Town is part of a career turnaround so amazing that he looks like the new Clint Eastwood. Seriously. 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. And there’s no need to torture the Eastwood comparison to see he’s on a similar path. We’re not talking about some flawless, auteurist-god Eastwood (one word: Changeling), but the director who steadily turns out audience-pleasing movies with something weighty underneath (Unforgiven), who lives at the crossroads of entertainment and art. Who else has that career? Jack Nicholson, Denzel Washington, and Tim Robbins are among the A-list actors who have competently stepped behind the camera, but in their generation only Affleck and George Clooney have shown genuine directors’ visions.

Thanks for the tip, josh. Meet you on the corner of Art & Entertainment, September 17th.