Wick's Beantown Classics (7)





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Created Dec 17, 2010 09:54PM PST • Updated Dec 18, 2010 02:53AM PST

Great movies emerge from Beantown much more often than great baseball teams. Used to be both emerged more often than great football teams, but that was before Robert Kraft brought the Hoodie and Tom Terrific to the Hub. Well, unbridled success doesn’t make for a great movie anyway, as the sad stories below reiterate.

Sense of place, thy name is Boston.

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Average

  • Great
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  • 97 Points
Title Released Trust Weighted Summary Viewable
1st Mystic River
2003 Perfect 92 Points

One of a string of latter day Clint classics, Mystic River inexorably drives forward from its loss-of-innocence opening to its heartbreaking conclusion, throwing in an ironic coda for good measure. Great story, punchy dialog, crisp direction, stellar acting: perfect movie.

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Added Dec 18, 2010 02:12AM PST • Updated Dec 18, 2010 02:12AM PST
2nd The Town
2010 Very Good 92 Points

The Town – a beefy treat for fans of crime drama from Ben Affleck, now a writer-director-star triple threat. Staying close to his boyhood home, Affleck romanticizes bank robbers from the Irish-American projects adjacent to prosperous Boston. When one of them falls for the manager of a bank they just robbed, and she doesn't know who he really is, there's more than enough tension for The Town's two-hour run time.

Prince of Thieves, the title of the source novel, suggests the romantic aura that Affleck's gentleman robber assumes. Taking the antihero vibe to its Hollywood limit, *Th…

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Added Dec 17, 2010 09:54PM PST • Updated Dec 21, 2010 07:01AM PST
3rd Gone Baby Gone
2007 Great 124 Points

A terrific thriller, featuring great acting, memorable lines, plenty of twists and an emotional wallop, Gone Baby Gone unfolds in three stages, each concluding with a strong climax, making the whole feel greater than the sum of its parts.

Ably directed by Ben Affleck, and more than ably performed by a cast led by his younger brother Casey Affleck, this movie joins "Good Will Hunting":http://www.viewguide.com/movies/366283 as an Affleck tribute to earthy Bostonians.

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Added Dec 18, 2010 12:45AM PST • Updated Dec 18, 2010 02:12AM PST
4th The Departed
2006 Great 95 Points

High quality Scorsese with a bold faced cast operating at the top of their games, this movie misses serious greatness due to the ultimate absurdity of its plot and its numerous circoreality liberties.

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Added Dec 17, 2010 09:54PM PST • Updated Dec 18, 2010 10:38AM PST
5th Good Will Hunting
1997 Really Great 80 Points

Ben and Matt emerged fully formed as perfect Hollywood creatures, fresh from Boston.

Good Will Hunting remains worth screening every few years, especially with youngsters new to it. Indeed, Matt Damon & Ben Affleck's breakthrough stands the test of time, left-wing affectations no…

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Added Dec 18, 2010 12:48AM PST • Updated Dec 18, 2010 10:38AM PST
6th The Fighter
2010 Really Great 88 Points

Set in Lowell, just north of Boston, this isn't strictly a Beantown movie, yet is nonetheless steeped in greater Boston ethnography.

New addition to the boxing movie canon? Absolutely, complete with elemental title, elemental story and devastating performances. A female power story as much as a male one, Melissa Leo, Christian…

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Added Dec 18, 2010 10:38AM PST • Updated Dec 19, 2010 12:02PM PST
7th The Boondock Saints
1999 Great 108 Points

The Boondock Saints traffics in cliches, smoothly and high mindedly at first, then over-the-top, ultimately jumping the shark entirely. Fortunately it's a hell of a lot of fun the whole way down.

It tells the tall tale of twin brothers who rise from the Irish precincts of South Boston to knock off bad guys who need killing. Half Boston character study, half action exploitation, no wonder it's a cult hit.

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Added Aug 14, 2011 02:25AM PST • Updated Aug 14, 2011 02:25AM PST

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