Going to the cinema is one of many everyday pleasures to be had in Paris: the typical variety of films on offer, particularly in the Latin Quarter, seems like a 365-day film festival. On any given day, you could see the latest Hollywood release, new independent films from around the world, or a range of cinema classics. To see Buñuel, Bergman or Kurosawa on the big screen, there’s no need to go to the cinémathèque or wait for a new restored release: cinemas like the Accatone, the Grand Action and the Reflet Médicis in the 5^th arrondissement show films like this every day, and the they don’t cancel a screening if too few people turn up.

Any tourist can take advantage of the cinematic opportunities in Paris: if you don’t speak a word of French, you can go and see an English film (if it’s a new Hollywood film or a children’s film, look out for the letters ‘VO’ to make sure you see the ‘original version’, not one dubbed in French). If you understand some French, or are fluent in another language, you can watch a foreign film and read the French subtitles. If you’re fluent, or nearly and want a challenge, you can see a French movie: even if you don’t understand every word, Paris’s historic cinemas are so charming that you’ll still have a wonderful experience.

On a trip to Paris last week, I happened to catch actor-director Sylvestre Amoussou’s second feature, Un Pas en avant: Les Dessous de la corruption (2011). It was almost five years ago that I saw his directorial début, Africa Paradis (2007), a fiction film based on a highly original concept. Set in a future where Europe has become uninhabitable, the film imagines what could happen if there were a wave of European immigrants to Africa. Africa Paradis made its social commentary through a reversal of fortunes, showing white people treated as second-class citizens, taking on just the sort of menial jobs that are traditionally assigned to immigrants. The film was enjoyable as a comedy, making the audience laugh by turning a familiar situation on its head. At the same time, Africa Paradis was thought-provoking in the radical way in which it asks you, as a spectator, to put yourself in another person’s place (be that the role of the oppressor or the oppressed). The drawback of Africa Paradis is that it felt a little amateurish, so that it was difficult, at times, to become fully involved in the story.

In Un Pas en avant, Amoussou has created a film with much more professional production values. Like Africa Paradis, over-acting is the rule, but this adds to the film’s comic value, as though the actors and audience share the enjoyment of exaggeration, as in a soap opera. In terms of the film’s technical quality, compelling storyline and often artistic shot composition, Un Pas en avant is a much stronger film than Africa Paradis.

Amoussou himself takes the starring role in Un Pas en avant, playing both greengrocer Koffi Godomey and his twin brother Boubacar, a delivery driver. When Boubacar disappears, and the police investigation seems to be going nowhere, Koffi decides to start his own search for his brother. In the process, he discovers terrible corruption taking place in Benin, at the highest levels of the country’s government and police service, its NGOs and the French embassy. While this storyline has the potential to be confusing, the exposition is clear: the characters are well-differentiated, and the narrative is paced just right, allowing the audience to follow the unfolding intrigue easily.

As in his first film, Amoussou excels in taking serious subject matter and treating it with a skilfully balanced blend of sobriety and tragedy on the one hand, and humour and optimism on the other. Amoussou’s portrayal of the twin brothers is entertaining, the chief difference between them being that one has no hair while the other has quite a lot. There is also a solid dose of comedy in Koffi’s relationship with his wife, who initially makes fun of his efforts to play the detective. The African setting is also particularly enjoyable, in terms of verbal expression and visual aesthetic: the local linguistic expressions and the noises used to express disapproval; the beautiful traditional costumes that the characters wear; the simple but welcoming interiors, and the golden light quality in the exterior shots.

A friend who attended the screening had personal experience of the region, and pointed out that there was a clear effort to Africanise and idealise in this film. In reality, she said, it is common to combine an African wrap with a second-hand imported t-shirt. It is also unrealistic that not a single person showed signs of any past or present illness. That said, this film was intended for a mass audience, and so can be seen as romanticising everyday reality in the way of Hollywood cinema: we rarely complain of American cinema’s beautiful people or the mismatches between the characters’ modest jobs and their spacious apartments or stylish clothing.

Un Pas en avant arguably has more than enough reality in its storyline, which focuses on the way in which some of the most privileged individuals in Benin shamelessly take a cut of donations intended for the poorest. They siphon off a percentage of every food and medication donation that comes into the country. Even more troubling, the film shows how they are able to get away with it: while the majority is very much opposed to corruption, most people never know what is going on. When the average honest person does find out about corruption, those in power try to buy their complicity, and when that fails, readily resort to threats or even murder. Unlike in a Hollywood film, the audience can never be 100% sure that the good guys are going to make it: as the film builds towards its climax, it seems as though no one is safe.

A potential problem with Un Pas en avant is in the degree to which it confirms stereotypes about corrupt African leaders and lawlessness in the region. It is depressing to consider how much this fiction film may reflect reality, and it could discourage people from donating to Africa, let alone visiting. At the same time, it contains a message of hope, in that it shows that  it is possible to speak out and take action against corruption, though very risky. The film implicitly asks every audience member to consider whether they would be brave enough to report corruption in these circumstances. One unexpected element of the film is its handful of openly didactic moments, reminiscent of Eisenstein, where customers at Koffi’s fruit and vegetable stall state their beliefs about the importance of voting, or their refusal to tolerate corruption. This is just one of a combination of characteristics which makes Amoussou’s work so distinctive.

Un Pas en avant: Les Dessous de la corruption is currently screening several times daily at the Espace Saint-Michel, 7 place St-Michel, Paris.

The director of other style-over-substance masterpieces such as “Bronson” and “Valhalla Rising” makes a neo-noir arthouse action flick that has a lot more in common with “Yojimbo” than it does with “The Fast and the Furious.” In other words, if you’re a gearhead looking for high octane, macho machine porn, look elsewhere. Well, let’s not get carried away. There is enough savage violence to satiate the callow Tarantino fanboy (not that Tarantino’s work is defined by its loyalists), if he’s willing to sit through a more European, or Sofia Coppola-esque if you like, interpretation of the classic badass myth.

Ryan Gosling plays The Driver, a semi-modernized version of Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name, a direct outgrowth from the films of Akira Kurosawa. The Driver is quiet, brooding, smart and brutally just. He’s so quiet, in fact, he could probably pass as autistic, though his smoothness with the ladies lessens the effect. During the day, he drives for the movies. During the night, he drives for anyone who’ll hire him — usually criminals looking for a getaway driver. The money is good, but, naturally, he’s in it for the thrill. After killing a few mob foot soldiers in the aftermath of the a job gone bad, The Driver finds himself in a pickle. His cold brutality, superhero abilities and underlying humanity are his only means of survival.

“Drive” is a strange little picture. It’s cheap, but looks fantastic. It’s drenched in 1980s nostalgia, but feels like a 1990s crime thriller. It’s trailer feels like a mechanical 2000s explosion-fest, but the film itself feels like a criticism of that trend. It feels heartless and amoral, but features touching moments of genuine humanity. In all it’s contradictions, derivations and conceits, it manages to find a nugget of originality, which Refn pinches, molds and polishes into a picture of cinematic vitality. Over the last decade, television, with original dramas like “Mad Men,” “The Sopranos,” “The Wire,” and “Breaking Bad,” has slowly been stealing cinema’s thunder. While the big screen seems unable to satisfy anyone other than fanboy teenagers these days, television has been telling the kind of serious, adult stories once only available in films. “Drive” proves that there are still some things you can only find in a darkened theater.

Saoirse Ronan with a blood-spattered face in "Hanna"

Up-and-coming auteur Rian Johnson recently tweeted, “The filmmaking in Hanna was pretty humbling.” That’s high praise coming from the man behind the indie caper sensation “Brick” and the quirky con flick “The Brothers Bloom.” But high praise is old hat for “Hanna” director Joe Wright who’s used to being gushed over by cinephiles. The minutes-long Dunkirk beach tracking shot in “Atonement” practically sent movie geeks into heat. But with “Hanna” Wright deliberately sheds his austere period-piece elegance and opts for a more modern, frenetic style of showing off.

Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a 16-year-old super-soldier who lives in a cabin deep in Finland’s icy forests with her father Erik (Eric Bana). Trained in martial arts, literature, language and mathematics since she was a small child, Hanna has been forged into one of the most skilled and vicious assassins in the world, though, she doesn’t really know why. And her father, a former government agent-turned fugitive, isn’t too keen on telling her the whole story. She knows only that she must kill CIA agent Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett) to avenge the death of her mother. When Hanna finally feels her training is complete, she pushes a red button that alerts the CIA of her location. And the bloodsport begins.

“Hanna” is a fresh, exhilarating take on the revenge thriller. It’s a fast-paced chase movie with fantastic action choreography, a compelling and humanistic script and engaging performances. Wright even manages to slip in a few legitimate insights into the psychology of a directionless teenage girl. This is the movie “Sucker Punch” director Zack Snyder wishes he were capable of making.

The cast is rounded out by strong supporting players, notably Tom Hollander, who plays a deliciously loathsome contract killer employed by Wiegler. Blanchett, however, is the film’s lone dull spot. Her usually commanding presence is curiously absent. She feels out of place in a role that seems more suited for someone like Tilda Swinton. But a miscast central villain isn’t enough to derail the sheer thrill of this hard-hitting flick.

And underneath it all, crashing and spiking its way onto our eardrums, is the terrific score by British digi-musicians The Chemical Brothers. The duo’s industrial electronica soundtrack scoffs at traditional cinema sound cues and bullies its way into the spotlight. And it’s exactly the kind of overbearing, disorienting collage of sound “Hanna” needs.

Jokes about Hollywood’s increasing tendency to recycle old ideas in the form of reboots, remakes, sequels and prequels are more commonplace than ever. But “Hanna” is one of the few faces brave enough to stand out in the crowd.

What would it be like if Alfred Hitchcock directed an episode of “Quantum Leap” with a script based on “Groundhog Day”? Well, it wouldn’t turn out exactly like “Source Code,” but it’d be pretty close.

Duncan Jones (or Zowie Bowie if you prefer) wowed audiences lucky enough to catch his debut sci-fi thriller “Moon” (2009) during its short theatrical run. His technical wizardry and philosophical maturity helped him quickly escape the shadow of his superstar father. And now with Summit Entertainment’s “Source Code” Jones steps into the big time with a big budget, a big star and big studio pressure.

So how did he do? Don’t let the above description fool you. “Source Code” is a success.

After Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), a helicopter pilot serving in Afghanistan, flies into enemy gunfire he awakens on a Chicago-bound train with no memory of how he got there. He feverishly tries to figure out why he’s there and, after seeing a strange face in the mirror, who he is. But just as he starts to put the pieces together the train explodes, killing everyone on board. This time, he wakes up in a small, dark capsule, receiving mission instructions from a woman (Vera Farmiga) in a military uniform via video monitor.

Stevens slowly learns that he is the centerpiece in an experimental counter-terrorism program called Source Code, which allows his consciousness to be inserted into the last eight minutes of another person’s memory preserved in a computer program after they die. His task is to search this dead person’s lingering consciousness to find the identity of the terrorist who bombed the train before a bigger attack hits Chicago in real life.

If any of that sounds gimmicky, that’s because it is. Even though I count “Moon” as one of the best films of 2009, I had low expectations for Jones’s second effort. Something about the big budget polish, ultra high concept and pseudo-science air of the promotional materials turned me off. But “Source Code,” as much as it’s tangled up in that world, is ultimately a human story wrapped up in a sophisticated philosophical dilemma.

Beneath the quantum mechanics and theoretical physics gobbledygook is an age old ethical problem, which pits the rights and autonomy of the individual against the welfare and safety of the population at large. You see, Stevens (spoiler alert!) is actually dead. He was killed in action in Afghanistan. His consciousness, however, is being kept alive by machines so that he can execute the Source Code program and ostensibly save the lives of countless Chicagoans. The problem is that he basically has no choice in the matter. Disembodied consciousnesses tend to have limited options in the physical world. And, since his body is already dead, he doesn’t even have the option of suicide.

Jones, who holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, handles this dilemma with incredible awareness and skill throughout most of the film. The motives of all the players are clear and valid.

The film’s biggest problems stem from the myriad plot holes and logical inconsistencies of its concept. If Stevens is inserted into another person’s memories, how is he able to change things? or is he entering an alternate reality each time he enters the Source Code? But if that’s the case then how is he able to send an email to Vera Farmiga’s character in the current reality from a different reality? And what about the ending? Why is Stevens suddenly able to remain in the Source Code (or alternate reality) when he was unable to before? And is he seriously just going to take over the other guy’s life and live as Sean Fentress forever? That seems a little strange. Fraudulent even.

But the logic challenges of its concept seem irrelevant when “Source Code” really gets cooking. Jones makes sure its human core carries it across the finish line.

Philosophers have wrestled with variations of this problem for centuries. Philosophies like incompatibilism, dualism, hard determinism and compatibilism have arisen to explain the nature of our autonomy, or lack thereof.

“The Adjustment Bureau,” George Nolfi’s loose adaptation of an early Philip K. Dick story, removes the internal struggle altogether and places control of human behavior in the hands of other, more advanced beings tasked with saving humans from our own stupidity and irrationality.

This makes for an interesting view of the age old debate. The film shifts the question away from the biological and metaphysical and toward the moral. In effect, humans don’t have free will because they haven’t earned it yet. It’s a fascinating paradox, to be sure, and one that makes for good post-viewing conversation.

But the philosophical and science fiction elements of the film are mere garnishing on the plate of the real meat — an old fashioned love story.

David Norris (Matt Damon) is a young, trending politician known for his energy and authenticity. After losing his bid for a US Senate seat he has a chance meeting with Elise (Emily Blunt), a beautiful, charismatic ballerina. They fall for each other instantly, almost as if it was meant to be.

Unfortunately for David and Elise, a longterm relationship is not in “the plan” for them. So members of the mysterious bureau, dressed like hardboiled 1940s film noir detectives, make slight alterations of reality and tweak their reasoning processes just enough to keep them apart. You see, everything must go according to “the plan.” Whose plan? The Chairman’s plan. He’s the big boss, the guy (literally) upstairs. God is never mentioned in the film, and the tone is decidedly non-religious, but the metaphors are obvious.

After David repeatedly refuses to follow “the plan” he is given a choice. If he continues to pursue Elise he’ll ruin her chance to become one of the world’s greatest choreographers. And he’ll also destroy his own path to the White House. If he truly loves her, the bureau says, he’ll let her go so they can both live out their dreams according to “the plan.” I won’t reveal his decision here, but the film’s tone gives away the ending from the beginning.

At its core, “The Adjustment Bureau” is a breezy, optimistic romance. The film’s only real philosophy is that love conquers all. Take that however you like.

© 2010 Fox Searchlight Pictures

Teetering on the edge between melodrama and high art, “Black Swan” is a gripping, spooky, exultant picture that is as beautiful as it is ugly.  Sure to divide audiences, its experimental, allegorical magic realism is the skeleton upon which the flesh of a twisted, psychological character piece is built.

Nina (Natalie Portman) is a rising star in the cutthroat world of New York ballet.  She is a technician, known for her obsessive, insatiable pursuit of perfection.  Skill wise, she is the clear choice to replace aging prima ballerina, Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder), as the duplicitous Swan Queen in the company’s upcoming interpretation of “Swan Lake.”  Her grace and beauty mesh seamlessly with that required by the White Swan.  Her eccentric artistic director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), however, is unimpressed with her portrayal of the Black Swan, which requires an air of beguiling, lasciviousness to supersede the technical form she’s worked all her life to perfect.  Still, the role is hers for the taking, that is, until the new girl, Lily (Mila Kunis), emerges as formidable competition.  Reminded daily of the hollow existence of a has-been ballerina, at least in her limited view, by her overbearing stage-mother, Nina succumbs to the crushing pressure and slips rapidly into the perilous abyss of the Black Swan.

Director Darren Aronofsky paints a deliberately unsubtle picture of transformation in “Black Swan” that will almost certainly repel both general audiences and the piously artistic.  It may be readily interpreted that the film’s pointed presentation of explicit sexual self-discovery, psychotic irrationality and self-destruction are not only useful tools in the creation of true art, but required stages in that pursuit.  The fact that Nina is female, and sexually repressed, complicates things with a layer of anti-feminism.  It seems Aronofsky is, in effect, saying that in order for a woman to be considered an artist, she must be freed sexually by a man, and then be willing to kill her rivals and/or herself for her art.  Contrast this interpretation with Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2009 film “Bronson,” which glorifies and revels in its titular character’s rabid masculinity, and allows him to define the standards by which his own art is judged.  Both theses make for intellectually inadequate and morally dour works of cinema.  Luckily, “Black Swan” exhibits an uncommon depth, and offers something beyond surface readings for those who are willing to look.

The New Yorker’s David Denby, a critic I admire, wrote in his negative review of the film “[Aronofsky] imposes his own bloodlust on a woman’s mind and then turns her into a myth of sacrifice.” Denby, among others, sides with the interpretation I have explained.  But I don’t think that is Aronofsky’s aim.  Nina is rarely an active protagonist, and she can hardly be said to exhibit bloodlust.  ”Black Swan” isn’t a misogynistic story of an aspiring artist who must win the approval of a male superior.  Nina is already an accomplished artist who is merely a victim of circumstance.  Her climactic triumph is not one of artistic achievement, but of relief.  Having lived her entire life as the White Swan, probably through no choice of her own, and inexorably thrust into an antithetical persona for a short time, Nina finally finds the courage to reject both.  She is in control for the first time in her life, crossing the threshold from passive to active protagonist.  And it is a joy to watch.

“Black Swan” is Aronofsky’s most mature film to date.  His fascination with self-destruction and the primitive man, exercised prominently in each of his previous films, gets another pass here but with a more daring, more confident and smarter director at the helm.  ”Black Swan” is easily one of the year’s best films.

This 18 minute short centers on a ragged, accidental group of misplaced and displaced children playing soccer on a destroyed block in an unidentified war torn country.  They have an old radio tuned to a professional match going on somewhere far away, untouched by the whizzing bullets and rubbled buildings.  When their ball sails over an opaque wall of graffitied sheet metal, apparently some sort of barrier marking the end of friendly soil, Ana draws the short stick and must literally risk her life to bring back the only semblance of normalcy she and her playmates have left.

Our young hero crawls through a small opening in the fence and is immediately targeted by sniper fire.  She presses on.  She knows nothing of her assailant, only that he stands in the way of all she has left.  If she dies, so be it.  A life without some small pleasure isn’t a life at all.

Ana and her playmates, and the sniper we’ve learned, all listen intently to the same football match as she darts from statue to fountain to concrete barrier, none of it ever meant to shield young girls from rifle fire.  Amidst the life and death cat and mouse game and the football match, which holds the promise of something better, Ana and her assailant experience a brief moment of kinship.  A strange solidarity that only such a bizarre situation could bring.  It doesn’t last and the reality of war soon resumes its brutal charade.

Eric D. Howell, the auteur behind “Ana’s Playground,” has crafted a work of extreme maturity in a genre deluged by lugubriousness.  The brutality of his film isn’t felt in graphic gore but in the face of a young man, the sniper, not far removed from adolescence in years but corrupted well beyond its innocent grasp — that is, until he encounters Ana.  Howell’s film is a modern tragedy.  Hamlet, in his madness and rage against a conspiring king, was given the gift and relief of death.  Ana is cursed with the perpetual drain of survival.  She isn’t especially bright-eyed or hopeful.  She has no real fear of death, but lacks the cynicism to truly understand her plight.  Ana’s is the story of thousands of children throughout the world — the story of a manageable hell without the promise of relief.

The story centers on Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a boy whose diminutive, scrawny frame and uncannily pallid complexion make him an easy target for bullies at school, one of whom is especially brutal. Only Abby (Chloe Moretz), his new young neighbor whom he bonds with over a rubix cube, is aware of Owen’s plight and offers to help him. While Abby and Owen become increasingly intimate, his mother is oblivious to the physical wounds Owen suffers from his tormentors, while his father is reduced to a detached voice on the phone. This impending separation between the realms of childhood and adulthood is made painfully clear when Owen calls his father on the phone. Owen’s genuine fear and confusion over the possibility that Abby may indeed be “evil” eludes his father, who turns the conversation into another reason to vent his anger towards Owen’s mother. It is a devastating but liberating moment for Owen as he realizes he is on his own—that is, unless he has the mettle to “let the right one in”—even if “the right one” can’t share his sweet tooth and has been “twelve for a very long time.”

As with any remake, especially an American remake of a foreign film, there are moments of what I would call “American exposition”—when certain plot points or emotions are made blatantly clear instead of subtly implied. An example of “American exposition” occurs during one of the film’s most jarring but tender scenes. Owen, apprehensive about Abby’s “evil” intentions after discovering she is a vampire, refuses to invite her into his home. In spite Abby’s supernatural abilities and strength, Owen realizes he is the dominant in this situation and flaunts his power, taunting her with clicking sounds as if she’s an animal, mocking her inability to act for herself without his permission. Finally, Abby passes through the doorway, uninvited. After a tense moment, Abby begins to quietly tremble as blood pours from her eyes, mouth, even her heart. Owen, frightened and disgusted by his own brand of bullying, embraces her and invites her in. In the American version, Abby tells Owen that she knew he wouldn’t let her die; in the Swedish version, Eli says no such thing—her absolute trust in him is implied by her perilous crossing of the threshold. It is a slight and perhaps even inconsequential variation from the original, but it would be reassuring to think that American audiences would grasp the emotional bond between these two companions without such a deliberate verbal cue. Nevertheless, this and other instances of “American exposition” do not lessen the film’s loyalty to the original nor does it diminish the emotional intricacies that exist between Abby and Owen.

“Let Me In” is a coming of age story about a child’s loss of innocence in realizing that parents and grownups offer little if no protection or guidance; an adolescent vampire story that is mercifully free of the sexual charge and baroque love triangles of the “Twilight” saga. “Let Me In” instead thrives on the unique bond as it forms between two young friends, each with the power to help the other. Ever faithful to Alfredson’s original vision, Reeve’s beautifully choreographed end sequence in a swimming pool encapsulates the film’s central paradox of innocent love and the ghastly violence committed in the name of that love. Before I start straying into the lyrics of a certain U2 song, I will say that in “Let Me In,” bloodshed for the sake of friendship never felt so right.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film does not deliver on the promise of the opening scene, and this is unusual. I generally find that I can tell a lot about a film from the very first shot. If that first shot is boring, typically the rest of the film also drags on (I had this initial sinking feeling when watching Pink Saris). An attention-grabbing first shot normally prepares you for a film that will engage your attention throughout (as was the case with Cold Fish). And an opening shot that is tranquil but well-timed most often means that the rest of the film will be carefully edited too (The Light Thief is a good example). The opening of The American put me in a very positive frame of mind, so it was with disappointment that I realised, about twenty minutes into the film, that it wasn’t living up to my initial expectations.

To be fair, the film does to some degree give the audience the pleasurable novelty of seeing a much-loved Hollywood actor appearing in a more contemplative, European-style film. Clooney’s character is Jack, a hit man who retreats to a mountain village in Italy to lie low for while, though it quickly becomes clear that his real intention is to escape his lonely and violent career altogether. The character Clooney plays and the goal that he has in mind are typical of the Hollywood films he normally appears in. However, the events that result are more characteristic of European art film. The American portrays what the life of a hit-man in hiding might plausibly be like in reality. There is some action, but not a lot: most of Jack’s time is spent obtaining the parts to make a specialised gun, and painstakingly putting them together. He forms an unlikely friendship with the local priest, and slowly develops an attachment for one of the girls who works at the village brothel. Although there are a couple of people who pose a genuine threat to him, most of the time Jack is simply on the alert for attackers who aren’t there.

Initially, the impression of observing real life is refreshing. Too many films set in Italy cater to popular romantic conceptions of the country: outstanding architecture, beautiful people, fantastic food. While these are obviously part of Italy’s reality, the romanticised view is one-dimensional as it completely excludes more modest aspects of everyday living. This film displays rugged landscapes and ancient villages which are pleasant but not stunningly beautiful. Scenes take place in old telephone booths, in boring squares, under fluorescent tubes in small apartments, and in grubby cafés where a good coffee is a standard part of daily life rather than something to get excited about. But it is not the point of this film to give a well-rounded picture of the real Italy: The American clearly sets itself out as a narrative with defined goals, and as such the drab background is no more than that: background. As for the action, perhaps the film is too realistic, as it takes some time for Jack to work towards his goals, and the audience is left simply watching him perform small tasks.

Admittedly, most audience members won’t mind watching George Clooney doing nothing at all. But this film manages to take the fondness that many viewers will feel for Clooney as an actor, and make it evaporate having him cast as a one-dimensional character. All we know about Jack is that he is a reluctant killer. The audience is given no further details about his past or his hopes for the future. It becomes clear that one of the reasons he would like to move on is that he is tired of the solitude his work demands, and that he might like a long-term relationship. But early in the film he shows that he is capable of seemingly gratuitous violence, and the rest of the film does very little to balance this out. The audience feels some natural sympathy for Jack as the protagonist of the film, but it is difficult to truly like him for anything more than his good looks and fine dress sense.

The film’s American-style character motivation and plot is spoiled, then, by poor characterisation and art-film paced action. On the other hand, what begins as a pleasingly subtle visual detail characteristic of art cinema is ultimately reduced to a laboured and simplistic symbol typical of the worst Hollywood movies. Jack has a tattoo of a butterfly between his shoulder blades which he displays during his daily body-building exercises. One night, Jack is lying in bed reading what appears to be a nature guide, and there is an understated echo of his tattoo in the diagrams of butterflies. Later, when he needs to meet a client in a secluded location to test a rifle, he chooses a riverside spot and takes a picnic as a cover. When a butterfly lands on his client’s arm and he tells her that it is endangered, she is intrigued by the implication that a calculating criminal has a secret love of nature. She then teases him with the name ‘Mr. Butterfly’. It is here, though, that the symbolism starts to go downhill. When Jack next displays his tattoo at the brothel, his favourite prostitute also starts calling him ‘Mr. Butterfly’. At the film’s supposedly tragic end, the camera pans up from the scene of the tragedy to silently follow a white butterfly fluttering up into the treetops. Although there some pleasing symmetry between the film’s opening and closing scenes, the butterfly symbol is overemphasised and so loses its interest. The picnic scene already made the symbolism of the butterfly quite clear enough: it pointed out that Jack’s interest in butterflies reflects a gentler side to his character. Calling him Mr. Butterfly was taking things too far, and the butterfly flying up into the treetops was pure cliché.

While the events and, in some respects, the style of the ending copy the opening of the film, in every other way the film’s final sequence is the exact opposite of the first. Where the opening shots were full of magic and promise, the final shots completely break any spell the film is still able to cast. If you thought that happy endings were contrived, this sad ending manages to be even worse. I don’t want to spoil it by describing it shot by shot, but I can say that it tries so hard to be tragic that it makes you want to laugh.

But Ben Affleck, once derided as the talentless half of the Oscar-winning Damon/Affleck tandem, has fleeting interest in self-promotion. His decision to step behind the camera, thus revealing his true talents, set in motion the rehabilitation of his artistic persona. “The Town” is expertly crafted by a filmmaker who seems genuinely interested in making emotionally honest commercial cinema. And the burgeoning master director’s artistic rehabilitation, which began with his gripping directorial debut, “Gone Baby Gone,” is now complete.

Charlestown, a working class slum at the north end of Boston, is “The Town.” Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) and his longtime friends James “Jem” Coughlin (Jeremy Renner), Albert “Gloansy” Magloan (Slaine) and Desmond “Dez” Elden (Owen Burke) are among the many gangs of bank robbers and other ne’er-do-wells who call The Town home.   During the first bank job the gang takes bank manager Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) hostage.  After she is released, unharmed but severely traumatized, Doug follows her and strikes up a relationship with the unsuspecting victim against the wishes of his gang and his better judgment.  What follows is a serpentine thriller of dizzying action and brutal violence augmented by subtle themes of trust and moral relativity.

“The Town” is 125 minutes well spent.  The pace is taught, the feeling tense.  Affleck is okay in the lead, but the cast that surrounds him is magnificent.  Jeremy Renner brilliantly plays the evil twin to his compulsive hero character in “The Hurt Locker.”  Chris Cooper makes any movie he’s in better.  ”Gossip Girl’s” Blake Lively is a joy as the slutty girlfriend with an inconsistent Boston accent.  And Jon Hamm, forever tied to the archetypal Don Draper in AMC’s “Mad Men” effectively sheds that cumbersome mantle as the FBI agent pursuing Affleck’s band of merry mobsters.  A feat by any measuring stick.

But while “The Town” is thrilling and more competent than just about everything else in the studio realm this year, it lacks the depth of Affleck’s first film, approaches violence with child-like catharsis and promotes a truly warped sense of justice and morality.  ”The Town” is a genre film with a blockbuster budget.  While fun to watch, it lacks the growth one might expect in the second film from the director of “Gone Baby Gone.”