There Is Only One Way Out of "The Town"

As a Christian, I am embarrassed to say that a couple days ago I watched "The Town," a movie starring and directed by Ben Affleck.  It is sexually explicit, the language, though accurate to the characters it is portraying, is explicit, and the violence is horrendous.  But, through all the muck I allowed myself to sit through, I came to understand something better than I did before.  The world is in bondage to sin, and there is only one way out of that town.

The story line of "The Town" is based around its main character Doug McCray.  McCray grew up in Charlestown, a  northern annexation of Boston, in less than pleasant living conditions.  His mother left him when he was six and his father, though he was around, was not the role model you would want for your son.  See, McCray's father was a bank robber, and unfortunately, he taught his son to do the same thing.  After being drafted into the National Hockey League and being kicked out for misconduct, McCray goes back to Charlestown where, like his father, he gets into the professional heisting business while working at a gravel yard as his day job.  If only he would have stuck with hockey.

Doug McCray lived a life that he wanted to live in no longer.  And I think if all of his partners in crime admitted to it, they loathed their current state of life also.  They all lived in a vicious cycle of sin that they could not escape.  Stealing, killing, unjustifiable anger, fighting, sex, drugs, alcohol, huge egos, dishonesty, and insecurity was a part of their everyday their lives.  Simply, their sin destroyed their lives.

It is sad that it took a movie to wake me up from my blindness, but as I watched this fictional movie, I began to realize how true to life this movie really is.  Murder both in the mind and in the flesh, thievery, dishonesty, pride, insecurities which result in eating disorders and anger, adultery in the mind and in the flesh, pornography, and hatred happen everyday in real life.  Everyday people wake up and find themselves in a town that they are longing to get out of but don't know the way.  What people must know, though, is that there is a way out of that town.  His name is Jesus.

"Sin will make you stupid."- Grandpa Ditty

Postscript


The truth is, the plot of this movie is amazing.  But ,I strongly suggest you DO NOT watch this movie.  Not with your kids, not by yourself, not if you are young, not if you are old.  The content of this movie is not appropriate for any viewer.  I might have gotten something out this movie that moved me, but it was not worth the images, the sexual ones especially, that I will never be able to forget because of my poor discretion in movie watching.