WebThe Town (2010) is a heist film that follows a group of bank robbers in Charlestown, Boston, and the law enforcement personnel attempting to stop them. The crew at the center of The Town resembles a gang of five masked robbers who pulled holdups from 1990 to 1995. Police figures from 2010 showed that Charlestown accounted for barely 2 per cent of all Boston robberies(not just bank robberies). In 2010, estate agents were pitching waterfront redevelopments to young professionals and families. So I leave the movie theater and Im really kind of numb, trying to figure it out. Suspects at large after $100K stolen from North Side bank: authorities. 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.. Crockett: I remember being on the streets of Charlestown talking to some people. But No R.. Hes probably still there. When youre underneath in the concourse space, you could drop a keg at one end of the ballpark and have it reverberate all the way around. Chris Cooper (Stephen MacRay): Ben had me at prison. It was great. Hes part of John Hamms FBI crew. I look over and its Pete, and hes having his breakfast, and hes reading the paper, and I hadnt met him before because I didnt have any scenes with him. 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? U.S. Attorney Michael Connolly said at a news conference at the time, Once Upon a Time in America Is a Movie That Can Never Be Too Long, The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone Proves a Little Less is Infinitely More, Heist Review: Netflix Doc Appreciates That Crime Pays, Shazam! In all of his years of being a criminal, he robbed two banks and seven armored cars, plus robbing Fenway Park during a baseball game. Solemn now: To The Town. Afflecks crew of bank robbers needed genuine local flavor. And we saw the film for the first time and I must say: I was across the aisle and up two or three rows from Jeremy, and I dont know if Im letting the cat out of the bag, but I think he was thrilled watching that film. Jem is furious when he finds Doug cozying up to Claire, the bank manager who could finger them to the Feds. Al Pacinos Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon wants enough money to give a better life to his wives. 2023 date, start time and how to watch, From the stripper to the slap: the worst moments in Oscars history, Pedro Pascal is the best actor on TV even behind a mask. FINDLAY, Ohio (WTVG) - Authorities arrested a man in Findlay Monday on bank robbery charges. 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. And Ill tell you why: Nobody was rooting for Jon Hamm and the cops. Theyd closed off the street, working on this story that I had cooked up in my bedroom at home. He was quite clear. It was like a different world, the actor and filmmaker says. 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. Published in 2004 and set in the 90s, it follows a team of stick-up men led by Doug MacRay, a washed-up NHL draft pick and recovering addict whose traumatic childhood has led him to follow his incarcerated father into the family business. 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. The FBI says the vestibule was actually a "man-trap," designed to capture people like Hamilton. FBI figures reveal significantly higher crime rates pre-gentrification. Cooper: I dont know Jeremys height, but Ben is a pretty big boy. Theyre both from Boston and theyre doing the whole Boston thing, and Ben being Ben, in a very playful way, tries to like, wrestle him. I had a darker ending in it, like a real 70s ending, where Doug dies. Affleck unequivocally contributed to that proliferation. In Stanley Kubricks The Killing (1956), a marriage-minded Sterling Hayden leads a crew to take down one last racetrack for $2 million. Carter: There was a guy, Joe Lawler, who was helping us. When its done great its Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. 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. 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. He said, Shes slightly different. Marblehead is a little chi-chi. 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. Cooper: Hes had a wonderful career, but [The Town] was a big shot in the arm for him. Id go sit in Fenway and be the only guy there. WebWhitey Bulger and his friendss and some of the Charlestown robbers operated from Marshall Street Garage was actually in Winter Hill, Somerville. Her words had already come true. Dont run away from it. We love that movie, dont be afraid of doing things that they did that worked. (His co-star John Hamm once said thatwalking around Boston with Affleck was like walking around with the mayor.) And someone had forgotten to tell them that we were downstairs shooting. 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. 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. That would be the equivalent of approximately $5 million today. Nothing kills a Boston-set movie like bad Boston accents. The team, while sporting nun costumes and masks, quickly attempts to make an escape from downtown Boston to the bridge and beat the police department to the closing. Because along with watching the movie, I was working hard to process it. They dont fink. This shooting game is the newest brilliant sneaking FPS game. Then put it in Connecticut.. 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. And I just came over to him and I was biting my tongue. Agents with the FBI believe Gage Haws robbed five small town banks throughout northwest Ohio. Affleck: I had great stunt drivers. The story appealed to Affleck. At heart, its a story of social mobility. If the criminal culture that The Town associated with Charlestowns Irish-Catholic working-class community ever existed, it had dwindled away with the neighbourhoods traditional residents. Afflecks second film as a director charts the fall of a mythic heist gang and the streets which made them. For instance, the shot in which a cop supervising a traffic stop takes one long look at a carload of nun-masked robbers and turns the other way? She prepped for that for God knows how long. The Town is loosely based on Chuck Hogans novel Prince of Thieves. CONCORD, N.H. (AP) _ Three men who were convicted in a deadly string of bank and armored car robberies after prosecutors finally broke the ``code of silence in Theres like four people in the whole bar, which is a huge bar. I was cutting out pieces of felt while Gina [Rhodes] was stitching themmaking, by hand, the fake Bruins logo. Jon Hamm (FBI special agent Adam Frawley): I knew he had some serious Boston cred. Affleck also embarked on a series of interviews with locals, including convicted robbers and members of the FBI violent crimes force. Bill Simmons saysthere were a lot of Boston ladies like Kris in real life. It seems likely that Lively had met a few. All three were 25 or under. Those are the blueprints, thats the template. Because youre in a confined space, not a soundstage. Slaine: When he cast me in Gone Baby Gone I had no acting experienceand I wasnt the only one. It can be a terrible experience, meaning you can interrupt somebody when theyre trying to have a nice moment, or they can be pleasant. Aaron Stockard (cowriter): Ben called me up and said, I know what I want to direct next. 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. 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. 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. All three men were arrested and sent to prison. The Boston area was prime cinematic crime fields during the early 2000s. Oceans Eleven set the cinematic standard for a heist team. Stockard: Obviously youre making a movie so you mythologize it a little bit. Staging a chase scene in the North End was difficult, but shooting a robbery inside and around Fenway Park was unprecedented. Susan Matheson (costume designer): Ben at one point wears a zip-up track jacket that looks like a Bruins jacket. He grew up in Cambridge,which was close enough to Charlestown for him to know a little about it. It included a mastermind, a distraction, a partner, a coordinator, a backer, hacker, con man, and gadget guy. 1 hospitalized after fire in West Town, CFD says . I watched a screening with a different ending and it hadnt been testing well. Did they know that this was in the plans?. Everywhere we went people were so excited to see him. Its not just an accent, its more of an attitude. It eventually just blew up. And they said, We like what you did, we think youre a good director and we believe in you. And I was kind of struck by the enthusiasm they had considering for the most part, Hollywood operates based on success. To get to Charlestown was to live free. Ben wasnt in Boston. Hogan: I went in to go see it in a screening room in Manhattan like two months before it came out. Its not the same town as it was in the early 1990s and the 1980s.. The car chases get stuck in traffic, and the dialogue comes directly from testimony. In real life, they were not so lucky. As I got older I lived in [Jamaica Plain], West Roxbury, where my son was born. WebDouglas "Doug" MacRay is a former career criminal and professional bank robber from Charlestown, Boston, which was the bank robbery capital of the world. According to FBI statistics That was the most important part, because he could so easily lapse into clich. They blew it up and both sides of the street, all the brick buildings were totally covered in soot. The top of his head was really messed up. Craig: I was a struggling crime writer. Hogan: I was just checking out the internet one day in my office and I saw a Variety headline: Affleck moves to The Town. I called my wife over and said, I think theyre making a movie of the book. And that was it. That was the moment where I realized that I could differentiate one bank robbery from another. It all went to the actual production of the movie. But it isnt. Craig: I lived in Somerville for a while in the 90s. We all want to drive a f----n caaar like Gloansy. A woman who saw it speeding past reported it to the police, who matched the report to a truck rented the day before in nearby Medford by a man already suspected of a string of robberies. Claire foretells the doom of Charlestowns criminal culture. I liked the way it was released, man. 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