His father, Stephen MacRay (Chris Cooper) was a thief, just like his father, and all of Dougs friends were thick with thievery. Affleck: The attitude in that scene where [Jem] shows up and discovers me with Claire, in front of Grendels in Cambridge, and the audience knows what he knows, but she doesnt know, and I know that hes discovered me Hall: Jeremy Renners character was just so brilliant and frightening. There are three tiers of cells. They ran mass auditions of up to 1,000 people at a time, Affleck recalls. Stockard: Its a little weird being a piece of that, as somebody who wrote two of those movies. But mostly a Boston accent depends on your socioeconomic status, by and large. Hall: I remember going to the premiere and a group of Charlestowners were there and they all said to me, You ever come back to Boston, well get you a car. The cunning group is robbing city banks to steal money and making the getaway with diamond Heist. Its just great that hes from here and hes back. And this woman looked at me and shes like, Hes not from heah! OK, hes from, like, three miles away. So I read this new version of the script. He had participated in a bunch of these armored car robberies, and we had been talking for two hours, and time was almost up. The first or second take that he did, Jeremy wanted to do it on his own. Affleck: Rebecca worked just as hard on the accent. The sentence subtly shapes the viewers response to the daytime bank heist thatstarts the film. Owen Burke (Desmond Elden): I was going to a community college in Charlestown, I was working under the table, I had just gotten past some legal trouble in my teenage years. Stockard: As much as it felt like, We know this story, we know these people, there was also this entire world for us to discover. Craig: [Jeff] Robinov, [the president] at Warners, really wanted to make the movie. This week marks the 10-year anniversary of The Town, Ben Afflecks Oscar-nominated crime thriller about a group of bank robbers in Charlestown who target Fenway Park for one final score. He loves her enough not to kill her, but not enough to testify. As they fled with a bag of cash containing roughly $281,000 (180,000 then), another guard opened fire. Id made Gone Baby Gone for $18 million. It had to feel like Bruins. Who was in which car?, Burke: I remember we were all standing around and they were like, Oh yeah, were gonna blow this thing. There was a van parked there and they fucking blew it up. When we started, I said, I need a driver whos Charlestown born and bred. Interestingly enough, my driver was a guy named John Fidler who was a major suspect in many bank robberies, and also bread truck robberies. They blew it up and both sides of the street, all the brick buildings were totally covered in soot. Forget it. Culture Editor Tony Sokol is a writer, playwright and musician. Honestly, people just wouldnt have liked the movie [with my ending]. And there were probably a couple of guys there who were still robbing banks.. Robert H. Brady, 42, was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock to five years in prison and three years of supervised release. Some residents felt it portrayed the locals as in the words of onequoted in The Christian Science Monitor, a bunch of dumb bums. They had all these Blaupunkts. 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. Adrian was off the project. Thats how you drive a f----n caaar, declares the getaway driver, Gloansy (played by rapper Slaine). Every take had the same amount of tension and edge but it was just all over the place. Affleck: Blake Lively took the train from New York. In 2010, Affleck directed The Town, a drama about a gang of Charlestown armored car robbers. Matheson: I will never forget sitting there with some felt and scissors at 3 or 4 in the morning. Hed done his time. 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. And someone had forgotten to tell them that we were downstairs shooting. Rebecca Halls character asking Douggie why the kids with whom she volunteerscall her a tunie? Needless to say, it really shook me up. MacRay, who is a recovering addict with mommy issues, is more of a sociopath than Jem, who is only living the way the streets taught him. Everybody wanted to cut it. Four men in ski masks ambushed and hijacked the Northeast Armored Transport truck Aug. 25, 1994, in a parking lot of a branch of the NFS Savings Bank in Hudson. Hall: I wouldnt really say I did a Boston accent. Whats the best way to get there?. Affleck: There tend to be trends and people feel like at first its fresh, and then its kind of something they like, and then it becomes something that people get tired of. It later served as inspiration for the Massachusetts natives third book. Cooper: I wanted to spend some time in Walpole [at MCICedar Junction] and just observe. Cooper: He got me about five [recorded] voices and one in particularthis one of somebody who had done timewas just so full of character and I just loved it, and so thats what I glommed onto. Like you didnt know what they were gonna do. R Thriller Drama Crime Movie 2010. hd. By the way? And I was like, Why are the people who live here letting us do this? Burch: We did one of the premieres at Fenway. When I was a kid, I was scared to go there. And I thought, Not only is she the best actress for the part, shes gonna be able to really surprise people.. [Adrian Lyne did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article.]. It included a mastermind, a distraction, a partner, a coordinator, a backer, hacker, con man, and gadget guy. He gets punished. I just still really thought that way. And man, he stood up really well to Ben. And then we put her and her cousin in the movie. To observe this life. Id go sit in Fenway and be the only guy there. A Boston bank robber looks for a way out of his criminal lifestyle after beginning a passionate romance with the woman that his gang briefly took hostage. Something the character of James (Jeremy Renner), aka Jem, could appreciate. And thats just sort of the natural progression. 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. I was still in the 70s mindset of, Oh thats how you end one of these movies. Provo, UT, United States () -Provo Towne Center 1200 Towne Centre Blvd Ste B. When it came time to cast The Town, Affleck had fun putting together a star-powered ensemble on a relatively limited budget. Extremely plausible. Whats better than that? Craig: I lived in Somerville for a while in the 90s. When fans of The Town think of Charlestown, they think of banks and bars and punchlines. September 2009. NEW YORK -- The mystery began when a Boston ex-con dropped dead on a New York train platform with a backpack stuffed with $180,000. 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. I remember the librarians called me the day before, just to confirm. Good God, some of them may still be there today. To Charlestown, our one square mile of brick and He said, Theyre looking for guys like you. And so I went over and I read a few lines, they took my picture. In Black Mass, Johnny Depp plays South Boston mobster James Whitey Bulger, an Irish gangster who informed on the Italian mob to the FBI. I said, Im so sorry to bother you Mr. Postlethwaite, but Im on the movie, sorry we dont have any scenes together, but Im so excited to be in a movie with you. I gushed for a while, and he just smiled as broad as he could, and hes like, Come on, come on, sit down, have a drink. I was like, Well, its 11 in the morning.. And more than anything, just from a noise standpoint, it was kind of unique. That was the moment where I realized that I could differentiate one bank robbery from another. In the film, the crew get away, largely thanks to the kind of driving that puts Daniel Craig to shame. These words flash up on screen at the opening of Ben Afflecks 2010 crime thriller,which follows a crew of Boston robbers as they rise fromlocal bank jobs to a hit on Fenway Park. 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). Affleck: The Red Sox were really smart and understood how vital and central their organization was and is to the city, and they loved the idea of it. 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. As for Affleck, the success of The Town helped advance his career as a director. With no real attachments, Doug never has to fear losing anyone close to him. Director: Ben Affleck. According to FBI statistics from the same year, the entire state of Massachusetts had fewer than 3 per cent of all bank robberies nationwide. The Towns numbers may not add up, but the atmosphere it creates seems genuinely authentic to the old Charlestown and to its proudly Irish, proudly blue-collar inhabitants. It went on to make $154 million (119 million) worldwide. Gone Girl we shot a hundred days for a two-hour thriller. But it was very real. He has a certain thing in that town. Affleck: Id been in action sequences plenty, so I kind of knew how they worked. Stockard: The movie that we thought about was [Michael Manns] Heat. 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 Welliver: I had an experience several years before for a David Kelley show called The Practice which took place in Boston. It is sloppy, sleazy, quickie. Jem is also Riff to Dougs Tony in West Side Story. Affleck: I was able to get access to the FBI and the division that chased and caught most of these armored car robbers, particularly in Charlestown. Yes Charestown, MA is known for Bank robbers. The length of them runs, I would think, like 150 feet. On Feb. 7, 2019, Brady pleaded guilty to bank robbery. But I certainly was familiar with his work. Im like, You know what, if its terrible, Ill get a great story out of it. I sit down and I watch it, and it was really bewildering. I call them No R movies, Hogan says. 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 budget that we had previously was too high for us to make it. And then I realized, Maybe they think I can make movies more on the cheap.. They went to jail because there were cracks on the pavement, leaks on the street. In Stanley Kubricks The Killing (1956), a marriage-minded Sterling Hayden leads a crew to take down one last racetrack for $2 million. Robert Brady, 40, was arrested in Charlestown shortly after he allegedly robbed the branch at 11:21 a.m. Hall: Youd be shooting this tiny little intimate scene, Ben and I, and Id look to my left and there were but thousands of people watching the set. Find out more, The latest offers and discount codes from popular brands on Telegraph Voucher Codes, That's how you drive a f----n caaar: the second bank robbery was based on the 1995 Harvard Square heist, The moment when a cop sees a carload of nun-masked robbers and turns away was based on real life, Affleck sent Blake Lively to hang out in Charlestown bars to prepare for her role, Ben Affleck directs Jon Hamm on the set of The Town, Close, review: a soul-scorching portrait of boyhood friendship and loss, Whats on TV tonight: Stephen Fry: Willem & Frieda Defying the Nazis, Anorexic and more, When are the Oscars? 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 Ben Affleck was incredibly famous already. 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. I was cutting out pieces of felt while Gina [Rhodes] was stitching themmaking, by hand, the fake Bruins logo. The bank robbers step out of their vehicle. Crockett: As he puts it, you have so many fame chips you can use. 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. If the world was empty, what would you do? 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! The Town captures the locale expertly, and the atmosphere masterfully. Rob Dobi Chuck Hogans novel Prince of Thieves opens with a toast: Raise a Glass. Claire foretells the doom of Charlestowns criminal culture. He also made sure to populate the movie with people who didnt have to fake their Boston accents. The crew at the center of The Town resembles a gang of five masked robbers who pulled holdups from 1990 to 1995. Both robbers were shot, one in the back and one in the head, and the getaway driver promptly rear-ended a parked car. Job Type:Part-Time. He didnt want to option it himself, so they set him up with [producer] Graham King, who got the option. Slaine: When he cast me in Gone Baby Gone I had no acting experienceand I wasnt the only one. This makes it a mini-epic. It kind of had a post-apocalyptic feeling to it. Now, William shares his story after his Caught in Providence case went viral. Every large theft needs an inside man, but Inside Man (2006), directed by Spike Lee, had Clive Owen as a bona fide genius. Or rather, close enough for himto understand how little he knew about it. If you say its a bank heist movie, people are like, Ill see that. I think it was a great step. Welliver: If anything, people were kind of burned out on the New York gangster genre. MacRay is a narcissist who uses Jems sister Krista (Blake Lively) for bathroom quickies, and Claire as a loophole. Hamm: I had also seen Dahmer. I keep waiting for someone of color, anyone whos not like me, this sort of Irish American crime writer, to figure it out and write another great Boston crime movie that doesnt look like all the ones weve seen. 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.. Hogan: Warner Bros. didnt want to make the movie for that amount. Burke: To go sit in the stands with Jeremy Renner in an empty stadium, it was surreal. I wasnt really in the movie world. Burke: I was at a point where I was still looking for what I was gonna do with my life. Craig: I hadnt really processed the new ending. Welliver: So, when [Jem] gets killed at Fenway, when the cops dump him and [theres] that brilliant thing of him reaching down and taking a sip of the soda behind the mailbox, it was a little bit of, Top of the world, ma! Its heartbreaking. 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. And Major League Baseball was open to itthat was what I was really afraid of. Martin Scorseses The Departed cast Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello, who was loosely based on Bulger. [1] Originally called Mishawumby the Massachusetttribe, it is located on a peninsulanorth of the Charles River, across from downtown Boston, and also adjoins the Mystic Riverand Boston Harborwaterways. Im gonna do a movie about Iran.. Eventually, homogenization came for those tales, too. They wore wigs, fake bears and masks; in the film, brilliantly, these became nun masks and habits. I came back and met with Ben, and I was so excited. Affleck: Im like, Why the fuck do you think people go to hockey games? Swearing and fighting. I had an interesting moment with him at one point, we were in the car and I said, Whats the deal? And he called me Ty, as all the guys did because they didnt want to say Titus. Its more general American but with a kind of East Coast, sort of slightly privileged vibe. Crockett: [Lively] would go out every night and hang out with Townies. For example, with my brother [Casey] in Gone Baby Gone, I thought it really benefited from the fact that he wasnt so well-known. In adapting the script, itself adapted from Chuck Hogans novel Prince of Thieves, Affleck and Aaron Stockard (with whomhe also worked on Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone) changed the cinema setting of the second heist to an armoured-car robbery and car chase based on a real incident that took place in Harvard Square. Many of them testified that they had grown tired of a life of stealing, of drugs, of broken relationships.. I dont think you know how you sound. Actors tell me that thats one of the toughest ones they have to do. Kill her, but not enough to testify of had a post-apocalyptic feeling to it for...: to go in and read and all of a sudden I see Ben Affleck walk in take the... Center 1200 Towne Centre Blvd Ste B at MCICedar Junction ] and just observe Towne 1200... ( Blake Lively ) for bathroom quickies, and Claire as a.. 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