You woke me up.. 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. The top of his head was really messed up. Slaine: Owen and I didnt have to listen to anybody. The robbers There was a script written. Afflecks Doug MacRay, the leader of the gang, is the one whos gotten tired of the life. The actor who played James Jem Coughlin, Dougs ex-con buddy, however, wasnt from Boston. Colin Burch (vice president of marketing and broadcasting, Boston Red Sox): We had filmed a number of movies before at Fenway, starting with Fever Pitch, and we did Ted, and RIPD, and Moneyball. WebThe crew consisted of Doug MacRay, Jem Coughlin, Desmond Elden, and Albert MacGloan, four veteran Charlestown bank and armored car robbers. After managing to evade a manhunt and escape to Florida, his character says goodbye to Claire via a letter. So he uses them in that way. Affleck turns it into a redemption story which beats the bank alarm at under two hours. Theres so many shots and so quickly, that at the end, OK, what happened? WebThe Town. I was only comforted by the thought that no one with a Boston accent has ever actually read the Boston Phoenix. Affleck: Im glad to have worked on movies that are part of that tradition. He was charged with armed bank robbery and making threats. They wore wigs, fake bears and masks; in the film, brilliantly, these became nun masks and habits. It was wild. He goes into the family business. Id been in good ones and bad ones, but I knew that it took time, that they were the result of the assembly of a lot of little pieces. Solemn now: To The Town. He was kind of hemming and hawing a little bit and I said, Look, unless they make you wear the fucking purple outfit and the mask, you gotta do this. He went, I know.. When its not, its predictable and obvious and trite. So many broke the code, shattered the code. Hamm: I had also seen Dahmer. The whole reason Matt and I wanted to do Good Will Hunting was kind of as an acting reel so that we could get jobs as actors. Afflecks crew of bank robbers needed genuine local flavor. In 2018, there were just over 4,000 robberies in Massachusetts compare that to 1980, when there more than 13,500. 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. The city also set the scene for Clint Eastwoods Mystic River, and Afflecks directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, both based on books by local crime novelist Dennis Lehane. 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. Hed be happy to settle down with his former hostage, Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall). 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. Ive never felt all that interested in literally translating from book to page. That would be the equivalent of approximately $5 million today. [Adrian Lyne did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article.]. Gone Girl we shot a hundred days for a two-hour thriller. He goes, Yeah, you know, Ill tell you, Ty. BOSTON - An infamous criminal, who claims he's robbed more than 100 banks, was arrested in an attempted heist in the Back Bay. It all went to the actual production of the movie. Alexander Witt (second-unit director): We talked and we said, Lets do it as classic as possible.. And Im like, Whoa, so he must be the director.. I liked the way it was released, man. 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! Ex-felons are not allowed to hold even fake weapons. Which was nice. And then we put her and her cousin in the movie. The Boston area was prime cinematic crime fields during the early 2000s. It very much had a sense of place. The full version. And Blake spent some time with her. Thats my quote that you used in the book. I was like, Oh man, whats up? He was excited. But he could not have been happier to be there. Welliver: I had an experience several years before for a David Kelley show called The Practice which took place in Boston. Agents with the FBI believe Gage Haws robbed five small town banks throughout northwest Ohio. The Town was originally set to be a three-and-a-half-hour-long epic directed by Fatal Attractions Adrian Lyne. Upon his exit, the bank employees activated Craig: Adrian was at this really ambitious double-album phase of his career, and he didnt want to cut anything. Afflecks second film as a director charts the fall of a mythic heist gang and the streets which made them. The case of the Charlestown robbers in the show grows to encompass and eventually upend Bostons citywide criminal justice system. Kim Mahoney of the And I thought, Not only is she the best actress for the part, shes gonna be able to really surprise people.. 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. Unfair or not, Charlestown had a reputation. So if you give somebody a space, all they want to do is figure out how to do a heist in there. They set up a date and Jeremy Renner and I both arrived at Walpole to go through the screening. Welliver: Weve got a couple of great little homages to The Friends of Eddie Coyle when theyre in Fenway: You live at such and such a street Thats completely Alex Rocco talking to the bad guy and hes saying like, We have your wife and your children are in the house. Aaron Stockard (cowriter): Ben called me up and said, I know what I want to direct next. 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. The one thing I miss about Boston is you saw a fistfight every day. Heres how it works in fucking Charlestown: Youre born in Charlestown, you play fucking hockey and you rob. And I went, OK, that sums it up.. Cooper: I think he was just having a ball with this character. And thats just sort of the natural progression. Also, Starr starred in a silent movie based on his criminal activity titled A Debtor to the Law. 'The Town': Is Charlestown really America's 'bank robbery capital'? And hes like, Wheres that from? And shes like, Oh, he was here. Numerous career bank robbers threw in the towel and testified in this trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Connolly said at a news conference at the time. Many of them testified that they had grown tired of a life of stealing, of drugs, of broken relationships.. Walking in I was feeling kind of glib. 2 hours ago. 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.. Claire foretells the doom of Charlestowns criminal culture. He set the bar with those filmsyou [must] reach a modicum of the depth and the artistry of those films if youre going to do a Boston film. He loved it, optioned it. Stockard: Ben had a good relationship with the Red Sox. Cooper: Hes had a wonderful career, but [The Town] was a big shot in the arm for him. Carter: Hes 6-foot-3. That was the moment where I realized that I could differentiate one bank robbery from another. At heart, its a story of social mobility. Police figures from 2010 showed that Charlestown accounted for barely 2 per cent of all Boston robberies (not just bank robberies). Provo, UT, United States () -Provo Towne Center 1200 Towne Centre Blvd Ste B. The violent film starring Jeremy Renner, John Hamm and Ben Affleck centers on the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. He was doing a long sentence. All three men were arrested and sent to prison. The Town captures the locale expertly, and the atmosphere masterfully. Hes been played by Johnny Depp, Warren Oates, and Lawrence Tierney. Cooper: I wanted to spend some time in Walpole [at MCICedar Junction] and just observe. And Ill tell you why: Nobody was rooting for Jon Hamm and the cops. Dillinger assembled a crack team and he himself would hop over the bank booths like a jack-rabbit, hence his nickname. Its kind of like a safety thing. The Cambridge native and his crew were back in Charlestown last week re-shooting an alternative ending to the bank robber thriller. In the film, the crew get away, largely thanks to the kind of driving that puts Daniel Craig to shame. Starring: Ben Affleck Rebecca Hall Jon Hamm Jeremy Renner Blake Lively. Affleck: Those little streets created something visually interesting that you dont see in many car chases. We all want to chortle,like Jem,there goes college soccaaar, while shooting a guy we dont like in the knee. I lived in South Boston, Roslindale. Shortly after 9am on August 25 1994, an armoured car pulled up outside a NFS Savings Bank in Hudson, New York. Affleck: Im like, Why the fuck do you think people go to hockey games? Swearing and fighting. Matheson: Weve had this official tour [of Bostons FBI office] and as were leaving, I notice a picture across the room, pasted to the wall, of a person in a mask, from the CC TV. And I was like, Why are the people who live here letting us do this? 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. Crockett: The Fenway heist was really just a logistical kind of clusterfuck. Craig: I hadnt really processed the new ending. Crockett: Gone Baby Gone, which I did with him, was a relatively small movie. Affleck: The Bruins have been extremely shortsighted and wrong with their policy, where if theres swearing or violence, you cant use their logo. The cunning group is robbing city banks to steal money and making the getaway with diamond Heist. Carter: Someone was getting married. The feds, they get shuffled around all over the country. He heard stories about Charlestowns reputation for bank robberies and its strict code of silence. They dont fink. Its like 50 percent of why people buy tickets. I wrote the book, then I went away for a while, then I worked on the script for a year, then I went away for a while, then other people wrote the script. 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. And so if you cant do it, just dont do it. The bank robbers, who were very much an element of life in the neighborhood for decades, have been gone for 15 years, replaced by a new Charlestown where gentrification has taken hold and the more accurate stereotype of the moment is: Oh, you must be a yuppie. 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.. The story appealed to Affleck. Culture Editor Tony Sokol is a writer, playwright and musician. But as I was signing books afterwards, I see this guy coming up. I was like, Im not gonna do another movie in Boston. You dont know where they come from. We all want to be from Douggies Charlestown and we all know its a fantasy. Agents with the FBI believe Gage Haws robbed five small town banks throughout northwest Ohio. 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. In Stanley Kubricks The Killing (1956), a marriage-minded Sterling Hayden leads a crew to take down one last racetrack for $2 million. 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. His father, Stephen MacRay (Chris Cooper) was a thief, just like his father, and all of Dougs friends were thick with thievery. [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. Ben Affleck grew up in Cambridge, only a few miles away from Charlestown, but to him the distance between the two places felt vast. When I was a kid, I was scared to go there. Peter Craig (cowriter): Theres a really great detail that I always loved where Doug just sticks his gun in one of those portholes in the armored car, and so the bullets like ricochet and rattle around in there. Its been in development here for a while. To observe this life. 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. 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