They were shooting a scene. To observe this life. Cooper: It was kind of this crisp evening. He was with his mother. September 2009. 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. Slaine: Owen and I didnt have to listen to anybody. Its like 50 percent of why people buy tickets. This really happened it was described to Affleck by a man serving time. Its not The Godfather of caper films, but it is a heist movie must-see. Id made Gone Baby Gone for $18 million. Shea, 35, Stephen Burke, 42, and Michael OHalloran, 40, were convicted of racketeering, conspiracy, robbery and other offenses Dec. 22 for a series of holdups in New England and Florida. 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.. Affleck: In a world of increasing homogenization, having this fresh place that I think stood out, it was appealing. He also made sure to populate the movie with people who didnt have to fake their Boston accents. This was a garage that See more. The gentrification of Charlestown is the huge pile of rotting wood fueling The Towns bonfire of crime. Affleck never had so much fun, One blue-collar Boston neighbourhood has produced more bank robbers and armoured-carthieves than anywhere in the world: Charlestown.. 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! 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. I was cutting out pieces of felt while Gina [Rhodes] was stitching themmaking, by hand, the fake Bruins logo. They had seen Gone Baby Gone, which opened in like sixth place to $5 million or something and wasnt seen widely. Hall: It felt like cinema in the classic sense. Free shipping for many products! 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? Hes been played by Johnny Depp, Warren Oates, and Lawrence Tierney. By contrast, Afflecks Doug MacRay heads a four-man gang. But it really wasnt. 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. She is the interloping gentry and renovates Dougs headspace. 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!. And he said, Well, there was a time I remember when we all had just robbed a truck and we pulled up to the switch car, and we all had our masks, and we were carrying a bag of money, and we pull up to the car, and we look over, and theres a cop doing lazy construction. And he just looked at us, and we looked at him, and he looked the other way. Some residents felt it portrayed the locals as in the words of onequoted in The Christian Science Monitor, a bunch of dumb bums. Tensions between the locals and wealthier transplants underscore the film. Funny enough, I have shot in Boston twice since then. 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. Its Renners Oscar moment. I said, Really, Ive got to drive all the way to fucking Boston to get a meeting with you? He looked at me and went, Youre crazy. I said, No, Im not. He said, So, you really want to be in this film? I went, Yeah. And then he went, Dino? I went, Yeah. He went, OK. He has a certain thing in that town. Im mighty proud of where I come from, he says. Welliver: He said, Hey, weve got great stories in this city that nobodys telling.. Burch: When theyre down in Gate D, where the shoot-out scene was before they exited the ballpark, that was probably the most challenging part of it. It was actually in the book. Hes crazy. Hes from Modesto, and hes kind of got that bulldog, kind of dirtbag sensibility. Welliver: The upside of that is everybody is rooting for him. The Town (2010 Jon Hamm and Affleck centers on the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. Ive never felt all that interested in literally translating from book to page. Unfair or not, Charlestown had a reputation. How are you gonna figure this out because you want to drive an armored car out of one of our gates? [But] Warners gave it back to Adrian and said, You know what, shop it around. He took it to Imagine; he took it to Universal. Did they know that this was in the plans?. They really loved the idea of putting these masked avengers in minivans. Pulling off the heistDoug and his team steal the $3.5 million in cash amassed during a four-game series against the Yankeeswithout it devolving into a cartoonish homage to the iconic setting took precise coordination. For example, with my brother [Casey] in Gone Baby Gone, I thought it really benefited from the fact that he wasnt so well-known. 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. It can be a terrible experience, meaning you can interrupt somebody when theyre trying to have a nice moment, or they can be pleasant. He heard stories about Charlestowns reputation for bank robberies and its strict code of silence. He claims that Ben Affleck played him in the movie, but now this former bank robber i. Affleck: I was very self-conscious about being limited to being the Boston guy. Theyre stopping at an exactly certain point and if they go too far, peoples lives are at stakeits a very serious thing. WebIn a stroll of Charlestown on a sunny day, its hard to believe this tiny Boston neighborhood could be the bank robbery capital of America the Warner Bros. hype about Ben The one thing I miss about Boston is you saw a fistfight every day. A Providence man who claims he's robbed at least 100 banks and that Ben Affleck's character in "The Town" was based on him was held without bail Thursday on charges of robbing two Boston banks and attempting to rob a third, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office said. 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. It included a mastermind, a distraction, a partner, a coordinator, a backer, hacker, con man, and gadget guy. The car contained stolen money an But what about in the 1980s and early 1990s? But the Associated Press, which broke the Coyman story, reported Burke is also from Charlestown and was sent to prison in 1988 for six bank robberies in Florida. And Im like, Whoa, so he must be the director.. The two banks He said, Shes slightly different. Marblehead is a little chi-chi. He has that capacity, and I think that makes him a classic American filmmaker. Cooper: I wanted to spend some time in Walpole [at MCICedar Junction] and just observe. 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. 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. Slaine: Im convinced my hearing is still not the same after that film. "Ben Affleck Played Me". CONCORD, N.H. -- A friend of two accused bank robbers testified yesterday as a prosection witness about a car found burning in Revere, the night of a 1994 robbery. 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. They ran mass auditions of up to 1,000 people at a time, Affleck recalls. In 2010, after his gang was eliminated, he fled to Tallahassee, All three were 25 or under. Its something Ive seen other directors do. Welliver: I still think that The Town and Gone Baby Gone, thats the bar. As I got older I lived in [Jamaica Plain], West Roxbury, where my son was born. Iran. Stockard: Obviously youre making a movie so you mythologize it a little bit. The former bank robber-turned-aspiring-movie producer who tried to claim it is back to prison. 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. Hamm: It was impressive. Craig: I hadnt really processed the new ending. They like walking out with a little bit of hope. He had robbed a couple of banks in Boston years before. At one point we even had Brad Pitt ready to do it so it was really close. 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. 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). 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. Carter: Hes 6-foot-3. Whats the best way to get there?. The Town stages heists in both places. They set up a date and Jeremy Renner and I both arrived at Walpole to go through the screening. Two armored car guards were shot to death in New Hampshire in 1994 during one of the robberies. Its worth bearing in mind that these are state-wide statistics, which do not differentiate betweenneighborhoods. Its called The Hurt Locker. The only thing that I had seen of him was the Jeffrey Dahmer movie, which couldnt have been more different from what I wanted. If the Herald said that, I mightve taken it more personally. But instead, Affleck went with something more bittersweet. Welliver: I had an experience several years before for a David Kelley show called The Practice which took place in Boston. Affleck didnt just direct, he played the lead alongside a cast of present and future superstars and locals. That would be the equivalent of approximately $5 million today. Then put it in Connecticut.. Theres two ways that this can go. Chris Cooper (Stephen MacRay): Ben had me at prison. It was great. Carter: There was a guy, Joe Lawler, who was helping us. I didnt know, physically, how I wanted the character, but I knew that I wanted a guy who was really unpredictable and scary and you felt nervous when they were on screen. Afflecks big killing in The Town is Fenway Park, and over 60 years later, the take is the same. Chuck gets credit for that. WebBen Affleck played this real life bank robber in 'The Town'. That was the most important part, because he could so easily lapse into clich. What it allowed me to do is privately observe the prison population. I liked the way it was released, man. 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. David Crockett (producer): They read, and not saying who she was or what she was in, she did the [Boston] accent. Ill do that., My place in Connecticut is only three hours from Boston, so I just, on a whim, jumped in the car, drove up to Boston, went to the production office and walked in, and David Crockett, one of the producers, and Chay were like, Hey, what are you doing? And I said to Chay, Oh, Im Detective such and such. And she was like, You fucker. I said, Is he here? And she said, Yeah, hes down doing auditions downstairs., I kind of slipped in and waited in line and then said to the production assistant, Dont say my name. And they walked me over to this locked door and once you opened it, there was an old, dusty cobwebby circular staircase. WebDouglas "Doug" MacRay is a former career criminal and professional bank robber from Charlestown, Boston, which was the bank robbery capital of the world. So he uses them in that way. But the sketchy details and the cast of characters sound like a story line from The Friends of Eddie Coyle, a classic movie about low-level wiseguys in the Boston underworld, or the sequel to The Town, the Ben Affleck movie based on a group of Charlestown bank robbers. After a seven-day trial, they were And I just came over to him and I was biting my tongue. 2 hours ago. I had somebody from Marblehead quote all her dialogue. He goes, Yeah, you know, Ill tell you, Ty. 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. Please review our, You need to be a subscriber to join the conversation. I love Adrian. Job. Five men accused of a series of bank and armored car robberies around New England were convicted yesterday on charges that will send them to prison for life without parole. Or why Affleck hired him to play a Charlestown bank robber in his new movie The Town.. It is also quirkily structured, vaguely biographical and personal. Thats what makes it great. I lived in South Boston, Roslindale. 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. He said, Theyre looking for guys like you. And so I went over and I read a few lines, they took my picture. Al Pacinos Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon wants enough money to give a better life to his wives. Welliver: On the page it was one thing, and he beat the page because rather than it being a scene that was about anger and aggression, Renner turned that scene into a scene about heartbreak and devastation. Nothing kills a Boston-set movie like bad Boston accents. And this was toward the end of the shoot. I dont even think they had sidewalks. 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. Crockett: [Lively] would go out every night and hang out with Townies. Theres something so tomb-like and archaic about Fenway. I was like, Im not gonna do another movie in Boston. In [ Jamaica Plain ], West Roxbury, where my son born! Back to Adrian and said, really, Ive got to drive armored... Movie the Town and Gone Baby Gone, thats the bar they set up date! Worth bearing in mind that these are state-wide statistics, which opened in like place. Fueling the Towns bonfire of crime unexpected or bizarre in the words onequoted... Guards were shot to death in new Hampshire in 1994 during one of our gates Charlestowns reputation for bank and! People who didnt have to listen to anybody stopping at an exactly certain point and if they too... Who tried to claim it is a heist movie must-see 1,000 people at a time, Affleck went with more! 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