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And hes like, Wheres that from? And shes like, Oh, he was here. But one of the greatest films about Boston goes back to 1973. Whats the best way to get there?. Bens standing there and hes doing his public relations things, and people are swarming him. And Blake spent some time with her. Honestly, people just wouldnt have liked the movie [with my ending]. The Town stages heists in both places. Theres like four people in the whole bar, which is a huge bar. And she really focused specifically, not only on like, an American accent, but what it sounded like in Marblehead, which doesnt sound like Charlestown. After a seven-day trial, they were To observe this life. The 6-foot-tall Dorchester-born rapper is an intimidating physical presence with a raspy grumble of a voice flavored with a thick Boston accent. Referring to a location as a vital character in a movie is a clich, but in the case of The Town, its impossible not to. The Town is based on Chuck Hogan's 2004 novel Prince of Thieves (set, unlike the movie, in '96, when Charlestown-affiliated heists were actually at their height). NO NAME GANG: CHARLESTOWN bank robbers. The Town was initially supposed to end with Doug paying for his sins with his life. And they were like, Just so you know, weve had some calls and threats of violence. People didnt know what the book was, I think they were expecting something that would really knock Charlestown. Id made Gone Baby Gone for $18 million. Suspects at large after $100K stolen from North Side bank: authorities. Starring: Ben Affleck Rebecca Hall Jon Hamm Jeremy Renner Blake Lively. The robbers So unexpected. Salon Professionals. I was still in the 70s mindset of, Oh thats how you end one of these movies. So all of a sudden, while theyre getting married, they hear gunshots at Fenway. They wore wigs, fake bears and masks; in the film, brilliantly, these became nun masks and habits. To get to Charlestown was to live free. It has ended with the government getting most of the money. At one point we even had Brad Pitt ready to do it so it was really close. Walking in I was feeling kind of glib. Whats better than that? We all sat there, and he did it. David Fincher does an even more exaggerated version of that. Because youre in a confined space, not a soundstage. Even the prison is real: the scene in which Douggie visits his father was shot on location at the maximum security MCI-Cedar Junction, the first time anything had been filmed there. Thats what makes it great. All three were 25 or under. And I thought, Not only is she the best actress for the part, shes gonna be able to really surprise people.. 2 hours ago. Affleck didnt just direct, he played the lead alongside a cast of present and future superstars and locals. I knew it was one scene and it was gonna be an important scene: [Dougs] relationship with his father. He was quite clear. The Town captures the locale expertly, and the atmosphere masterfully. They blew it up and both sides of the street, all the brick buildings were totally covered in soot. He didnt want to option it himself, so they set him up with [producer] Graham King, who got the option. According to FBI statistics I watched a screening with a different ending and it hadnt been testing well. Its this movie and its already got a script. After a seven-day trial, they were convicted on 54 of 55 counts of robbery, including one which resulted in the death of two armored car guards. WebFind many great new & used options and get the best deals for Lego Jail Prisoner Robber Crook Minifigure Lot of 12 w/ Accessories Town City at the best online prices at eBay! And that was really thrilling to respond to. The case of the Charlestown robbers in the show grows to encompass and eventually upend Bostons citywide criminal justice system. Kim Mahoney of the As they fled with a bag of cash containing roughly $281,000 (180,000 then), another guard opened fire. She prepped for that for God knows how long. FBI responds to bank robbery on NW Side. Afflecks second film as a director charts the fall of a mythic heist gang and the streets which made them. Chief Judge Frank Caprio#CaughtInProvidence#thetown#bankrobber See less Comments Most relevant Connie Ann My husband and I watched the movie right after I saw the Providence clip. With a relatively modest budget of $37 million, he made a classic heist flick thats well, porn for New Englanders: the heavy Boston accents; the scene in a Dunkin Donuts; and, oh yeah, the fact that a crew of robbers takes down Fenway Park. It was as simple as that. And I said, Is there anything just weird or strange or unexpected or bizarre in the course of this? And I mean, the guy had lived a pretty bizarre life. Doug MacRay ( Ben Affleck) is not cut from the same cloth as his fellow thieves. The guests ran for cover. The Boston Police Witt: You dont want to go, like, Quantum of Solace at the beginning where you really dont even know where you are, where you shot it. Adrian was off the project. But he also liked this book by Chuck Hogan. Hogan: Adrian really thought in more operatic terms, and he really wanted to do the book. Like you didnt know what they were gonna do. Its an action movie where you get to root for the bad guys. It also had a scheme so ingenious that Frank Sinatra supposedly considered pulling the job over doing the film. This is the script I want. And I said, Adrian, this is gonna be a three-and-a-half-hour movie. Hes like, Well, if Scorsese can make a three-and-a-half-hour movie, I want to.. Boston Police report arresting Thomas Hickey, 49, of Charlestown, for a Nov. 30 bank robbery on Austin Street in which he allegedly pushed an elderly man who was in line before him out of the way at a teller window.. Police report arresting Affleck: Hockeys such a big thing in Charlestown. 'The Town': Is Charlestown really America's 'bank robbery capital'? Hall: I wouldnt really say I did a Boston accent. He saw it and he was like, This is perfect. Hamm: I met with Ben and he was like, You know, I think were gonna have plenty of Boston accents in this. I was like, You know what, youre absolutely right. Once I started meeting all the Federal agents in the [FBI] office, very few of them are actually from Boston. Some of the scenes were shot on the real crime locations depicted. Iran. Its a hard movie to watch. And we got in the car and kept going. I totally put that directly in the movie. Something the character of James (Jeremy Renner), aka Jem, could appreciate. But how many people, speaking frankly, want to see a movie about a child murderer? Im fairly good at being invisible and disappear quite easily, but Boston? We all want to be from Douggies Charlestown and we all know its a fantasy. Affleck also embarked on a series of interviews with locals, including convicted robbers and members of the FBI violent crimes force. He also ran afoul of the law himself, recruiting real ex-cons as extras and giving them guns. His father, Stephen MacRay (Chris Cooper) was a thief, just like his father, and all of Dougs friends were thick with thievery. So I read this new version of the script. And more than anything, just from a noise standpoint, it was kind of unique. By contrast, Afflecks Doug MacRay heads a four-man gang. WebWhitey Bulger and his friendss and some of the Charlestown robbers operated from Marshall Street Garage was actually in Winter Hill, Somerville. I was fine with that. Ive been on the force for 20 years and Im not looking for money or anything, but Im originally from Charlestown and I think I could be helpful. Shes like, Well, its really great to talk to you, we do have technical advisers and everything kind of lined up, but if you wanted to drop off a card or something like that. I said, Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. soap.. Slaine: I think he was just really going for authenticity. Hamm: Theres nothing weirder than an empty stadium. Because along with watching the movie, I was working hard to process it. Theyre so proud of him and theyre so happy. But he could not have been happier to be there. When he took over the project Fatal Attractions Adrian Lyne was originally down to direct local boy Affleck decided he wanted to make this as much of a Boston filmas he possibly could. He often has a very small crew. Just because the echo in the ballpark. You werent sure exactly what he was gonna do, or how he was gonna behave, because it wasnt Matt Damon, whos always the hero and always wins out in the end. There have been dozens of films and television shows filmed in the Bay State over the last decade, but by the time the 2010s came to a close, the popularity of the No R genre had faded. Although we dont have the exact figures for Charlestowns crime rate in the 90s, statistics suggest that there was indeed a surge in the rate of robberies in Chuck gets credit for that. Burch: We did one of the premieres at Fenway. An earlier version of this piece misspelled Roslindale. Hes been forever. Cooper: I think he was just having a ball with this character. R Thriller Drama Crime Movie 2010. hd. The bank robbers step out of their vehicle. Stockard: Ben had a good relationship with the Red Sox. It was really more of an erotic thriller: The criminal who falls in love with the captive kind of thing. He was like, Thats me. In March 1995, two men held the guard of an armoured car at gunpoint as he tried to delivercash to a branch of the Bank of Boston on Massachusetts Avenue. Hamm: I had also seen Dahmer. It was concealing a character-based drama centered around themes that I was interested in, particularly the theme of children paying for the sins of their parents, Affleck says. But he pointed out the quote. Then they realized that were shooting a movie. And they told us all these stories, and all these fascinating things, and built up what this mythology was. The actor who played James Jem Coughlin, Dougs ex-con buddy, however, wasnt from Boston. Its worth bearing in mind that these are state-wide statistics, which do not differentiate betweenneighborhoods. Hamm: It was impressive. Slaine: I worked at Fenway Park when I was a kid, so to go in there and be shooting machine guns was pretty cool, pretty surreal. Ben wasnt in Boston. 1 hospitalized after fire in West Town, CFD says . WebThe Town. Carter: Ben actually went and sat down with the guy that his character was based on, and was able to see him and take notes in person. For the film, Affleck talked to locals, visited the maximum-security prison MCICedar Junction, and consulted with the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force in Boston. Hes probably still there. In 1995, The Boston Globe reported that the neighborhood was a community to which more armored car robbers are traced than any other in the country, according to FBI statistics. Hogan recalls reading that and filing it away. Theyre stopping at an exactly certain point and if they go too far, peoples lives are at stakeits a very serious thing. But the Red Sox were definitely in the spirit of, This is gonna be fun. But not everyone was happy with the image of Charlestown given toa generation of moviegoers. Some were ex-convicts for whom a judges permission had to be sought for them to carry weapons, even fake or unloaded ones. Theres a lot of different stories to tell. Violence, unsolved murders . He had participated in a bunch of these armored car robberies, and we had been talking for two hours, and time was almost up. A U.S. District Court jury delivered guilty verdicts on 54 of 55 counts, including ones charging the five in the Aug. 25, 1994, robbery in Hudson in which two The gentrification of Charlestown is the huge pile of rotting wood fueling The Towns bonfire of crime. But I certainly was familiar with his work. If possible, its really great to hire people with whom an audience isnt overly familiar, because audiences have developed expectations and kind of anticipate what an actor might do if theyve seen them a bunch. Susan Matheson (costume designer): Ben at one point wears a zip-up track jacket that looks like a Bruins jacket. The Boston area was prime cinematic crime fields during the early 2000s. Hamm: We had this 15-day stretch where we had to shoot at Fenway. The funny thing isand I found this out laterhe met John Cena for that role. Two armored car guards were shot to death in New Hampshire in 1994 during one of the robberies. There were 150 people down there working. The way John tells the story is, Of course I do two [moves] on him and Ive got him and he cant move, and [Afflecks] like, alright, alright, alright!. Craig: Adrian was at this really ambitious double-album phase of his career, and he didnt want to cut anything. Burke: To go sit in the stands with Jeremy Renner in an empty stadium, it was surreal. The one thing I miss about Boston is you saw a fistfight every day. It definitely felt like, Im getting to see something that not a lot of people get to see. The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. He claims that Ben Affleck played him in the movie, but now this former bank robber i. In one of his final roles, Academy Awardnominated English actor Pete Postlethwaite plays Fergus Fergie Colm, a menacing mob boss/florist who gives Doug orders while chomping gum and stripping roses. Police figures from 2010 showed that Charlestown accounted for barely 2 per cent of all Boston robberies (not just bank robberies). 10 Patty Hearst The gang torches their escape cars and their transfer vehicles. But they liked it and they wanted to meet with me, and I was like, of course. I was willing to meet with anyone who was interested in hiring me as a director. Affleck: Jeff Robinov and [worldwide marketing president] Sue Kroll were working at Warner Bros. at the time, and they asked to have a meeting with me. Hogan: I had a friend who worked at Fenway Park, who snuck me in while they were shooting that whole sequence. The Town (2010 Jon Hamm and Affleck centers on the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. And I was like, Why are the people who live here letting us do this? Thats the one moment that gives you a glimpse into how damaged and how profoundly broken Jem is. The Friends of Eddie Coyle starred Robert Mitchum in the title role and Peter Boyle as a hitman who ran a bar. The guy that I spoke with, who was kind of our head technical adviser from the FBI, was from Nebraska. Affleck: Those little streets created something visually interesting that you dont see in many car chases. That was sort of the trick. He has that capacity, and I think that makes him a classic American filmmaker. First of all, it was about 20 pages shorter. All they see are yuppies. Carter: A woman named Ginaya Green, who was a 20-something- year-old, born and raised in Charlestown, let me come and take photos of her bedroom, and her house, and her decor. It is also quirkily structured, vaguely biographical and personal. After shooting one guard outside the car and one inside the bank, they escaped in a rental truck. And I hadnt seen it with the new one tacked on. Slaine: Ive seen other cuts of the ending, like the one they put out, the extended version. The sentence subtly shapes the viewers response to the daytime bank heist thatstarts the film. He was a local hockey star who got drafted by the NHL, but started beating on his own teammates and got sent back home. He grew up in Cambridge,which was close enough to Charlestown for him to know a little about it. Blake Lively was sent into bars, real hoodlums were cast and a wedding party was spooked by gunfire. Three friends and acquaintances who had lied on the stand before testified against the five, along with four convicted bank robbers from Charlestown. 371K. On Feb. 7, 2019, Brady pleaded guilty to bank robbery. They stole their tunes., The interviews also gave The Town an on-tap supply of authentic extras. Slaine: Im convinced my hearing is still not the same after that film. There are three tiers of cells. But No R.. Ex-felons are not allowed to hold even fake weapons. Particularly commercial success. With no real attachments, Doug never has to fear losing anyone close to him. He was the leader that he is. WebCharlestownis the oldest neighborhoodin Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. September 2009. It eventually just blew up. Hamm: We could all go, hang out at the bar; me and Rebecca, and Renner, and Titus, that whole crowd. I feel like were still in the black. Its more general American but with a kind of East Coast, sort of slightly privileged vibe. And so if you cant do it, just dont do it. I dont even think they had sidewalks. Provo, UT, United States () -Provo Towne Center 1200 Towne Centre Blvd Ste B. Two guards -- Lawrence Johnson, 57, and Ronald Normandeau, 52 -- were shot to death while delivering money to the bank for North East Armored Transport Inc. of Manchester, N.H. For his turn as Jem, Renner was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, though he lost out to Christian Bale, who played the troubled brother of boxer Micky Ward in yet another movie set in Massachusetts: The Fighter. Then it might as well just stay a book. Everywhere we went people were so excited to see him. I showed Ben the skeleton and Ben said to me, How can we make it look tougher? And I said, Why dont we put them in tactical gear? And so that started this riff, this juxtaposition of skeletons and tactical gear. And so I think at first we were sort of like, Oh, how can we not be Heat? And at some point we said, Look, embrace Heat. He wanted to tour the prison and see it. And the guy said, Oh, the guy who wrote the book that that movies based on is on my softball team. And she said, Dennis Lehane is on your softball team? And thats when I was like, Its a small circle here.. Affleck: The only other thing Ill say about the chase sequence, it definitely reminded me of Jimmy Tingle in the 80s. In addition to including the statistic about Charlestowns armed-robbery predilection, the preface of Prince of Thieves features a quote in The Globe by an anonymous Townie. He poses as a florist, just like Dean OBanion, the Irish gang leader who celebrated St. Valentines Day with Al Capone in Prohibition Chicago. And in an exciting way. Job Type:Part-Time. Carter: That scene at the end, where you see [Jem] running across the street trying to get away from the cops, and the cars, obviously those are stunt drivers, theyre stopping really quick. I was playing a character that was from Boston and I worked really hard on the accent and went in and did my first rounds and the director said, That was great. Norbums. And they led me into this little alleyway. Jem spent nine years in prison for killing a local thug who was planning to kill Doug. In real life, they were not so lucky. I wanted to be a part of that. You couldve just called me.. Slaine: Owen and I didnt have to listen to anybody. It was wild. The FBI reports agents today arrested Anthony M. Hamilton, 24, of Charlestown, on charges he held up a Malden Citizens Bank branch in December, then shot his way out of a locked vestibule. He goes into the family business. The film makes Jem out to be the loose cannon in the arsenal, but he makes criminal sense. The Town took $23.8 million (18.4 million) at the box office on its opening weekend, from a budget of just $37 million (28 million). I walked the city for something like two, three hours, and by the end of it, I realized two things: The first thing was, I really like the movie and I cant wait for it to come out. According to the Associated Press, Shea, along with Patrick McGonagle, Michael OHalloran, Stephen Burke, and Matthew McDonald, were all from the same Hamm: Another smart move by Ben was to populate this movie with people that have an actual, real-life connection to these things. So I was thrilled. If the Herald said that, I mightve taken it more personally. Which was nice. And well, why not nuns and tactical gear? Welliver: The character Dino was a cop who grew up in Charlestown. Hogan: Dick Wolf from Law & Order somehow read [the book] early. Carter: Hes 6-foot-3. Affleck: Im glad to have worked on movies that are part of that tradition. Heist movies are filled with criminals who want to pull one last big job and settle down. The story appealed to Affleck. And man, he stood up really well to Ben. That would be the equivalent of approximately $5 million today. In 2010, Affleck directed The Town, a drama about a gang of Charlestown armored car robbers. He loved it, optioned it. Its ironic that by the time the film came out, the process was largely complete. Its not just an accent, its more of an attitude. And then a few months later I got a call and they were like, Oh, we want you to come back in and audition for the director. I show up at this office in Cambridge to go in and read and all of a sudden I see Ben Affleck walk in. I showed up, I did the reading. It kind of had a post-apocalyptic feeling to it. By the way? Date Updated: Jan 18, 2023. It had to feel like Bruins. Welliver: I still think that The Town and Gone Baby Gone, thats the bar. Its kind of insular. It was like a different world, the actor and filmmaker says. He was with his mother. Citizens Bank, located at 315 Hanover St., was robbed at 9:10 a.m. and a Santander Bank at 287 Hanover St., was robbed a mere 4 minutes later. They look at him. Staging a chase scene in the North End was difficult, but shooting a robbery inside and around Fenway Park was unprecedented. Funny enough, I have shot in Boston twice since then. We did all that kind of stuff. Craig: I lived in Somerville for a while in the 90s. Hes part of John Hamms FBI crew. This is their story. The only time I attempt it is when Im basically making fun of Ben, his character, about the Stah Mahket. He was given just 13 days, during which the sound of automatic gun fire spooked a wedding party that had hired Fenway as a venue and were apparently not made aware that there was also a film shoot in progress. And so they said they had this script based on this book, and I said, OK, let me look at it. I read the adaptation, and it had been developed by Adrian Lyne, who I just worked with. So if you give somebody a space, all they want to do is figure out how to do a heist in there. I was only comforted by the thought that no one with a Boston accent has ever actually read the Boston Phoenix. Craig: I was a crime writer already. I was like, Im not gonna do another movie in Boston. (His co-star John Hamm once said thatwalking around Boston with Affleck was like walking around with the mayor.) Nobodys gonna hire me to do anything except Boston., Stockard: I said, You can do Boston again, but lets get out of there for a while., Affleck: Which is why I was like, Great.

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