The Town and The Public Enemy deal with anti-hero criminals who grow up in tough places. They follow the lives of two men who make careers out of being increasingly strategic and big-time outlaws. One tries to have a message and the other doesn’t.
Tom Powers from The Public Enemy is bred to be violent and is a man who loves crime, as is Doug MacRay. However, we are given a more comprehensive view of Tom’s life. In The Public Enemy we see him grow from a boy with his partner-in-crime Matt Doyle. It is only inferred that Doug and “Jem” from The Town grow up being criminals in broken and toxic home environments. Both sets of best friends are also Irish-American guys with so-called hot tempers.
The Public Enemy ends with Tom getting his comeuppance, but Doug from The Town doesn’t. I have some personal feelings about the ending of The Town, which I covered in my review. I personally think The Public Enemy does it much better. Back to the topic though, The Public Enemy even has an onscreen message about how we need to everything we can to stop this type of crime trend. The criminal figures in general are treated very differently in the two different movies. Affleck is shown as being somewhat compassionate and loving to his girlfriend, but in Tom assaults his lady more than once and generally treats her badly. They are both violent, murderous men though and neither is shown as totally evil.
The two films cover similar themes and have characters with the same lifestyles, but they are differently purposed. The Town seems to be more an entertainment and The Public Enemy has more of a point. I can see why these two would be compared.
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