FBI figures reveal significantly higher crime rates pre-gentrification. By the time Affleck directed and starred in the film, Bostons oldest neighbourhood, a small squarish outcrop situated north of the Charles river, was no longer the crime capital of America. The imitators that his opus spawned, however, couldnt recreate what he managed to. Nothing kills a Boston-set movie like bad Boston accents. Burch: We did it during off days. [Through a representative, Renner declined to be interviewed for this article.]. 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. Welliver: He said, Hey, weve got great stories in this city that nobodys telling.. The Town captures the locale expertly, and the atmosphere masterfully. Itd be good to have him around for authenticity. Hes in the movie. 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. An alternate title for the film could be Ben Afflecks Boston, and no one would have had it any other way. The former bank robber-turned-aspiring-movie producer who tried to claim it is back to prison. How are you gonna figure this out because you want to drive an armored car out of one of our gates? By contrast, Afflecks Doug MacRay heads a four-man gang. Burke: There were the most narrow streets you could find in the North End. 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. Thats where I got my best stuff. Affleck: The day that were shooting the shoot-out with Jeremy, where he gets killed out in front of the McDonalds behind Fenwaywhen you do these stunts with cars, you have to really clean the streets immaculately because these drivers are precision drivers. 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. The cunning group is robbing city banks to steal money and making the getaway with diamond Heist. And to that end, its 100 percent on Ben. If the Herald said that, I mightve taken it more personally. Affleck unequivocally contributed to that proliferation. I was at that point in my career where every place I walked into I was trying to figure out how to write a robbery in that space. 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. Welliver: If anything, people were kind of burned out on the New York gangster genre. And Ill tell you why: Nobody was rooting for Jon Hamm and the cops. McCoy, 29, was reportedly a member of the Utah Air 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.. 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. He had robbed a couple of banks in Boston years before. This makes it a mini-epic. David Crockett (producer): They read, and not saying who she was or what she was in, she did the [Boston] accent. Maybe its not balls; maybe cocky is the right word to describe him. Some of the scenes were shot on the real crime locations depicted. 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. FINDLAY, Ohio (WTVG) - Authorities arrested a man in Findlay Monday on bank robbery charges. Affleck also embarked on a series of interviews with locals, including convicted robbers and members of the FBI violent crimes force. Youve got nothing to do, its like, Lets go try out an awesome restaurant. I felt bad that Ben didnt get to have that experience. Police figures from 2010 showed that Charlestown accounted for barely 2 per cent of all Boston robberies(not just bank robberies). But instead, Affleck went with something more bittersweet. The violent film starring Jeremy Renner, John Hamm and Ben Affleck centers on the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. Just let me go in. She opened the door and I just walked in and Ben was there and he just burst out laughing. The Town (2010 Jon Hamm and Affleck centers on the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. Carter: They were looking at Chris Pine in the very beginning, because of course Star Trek had just come out. 1 hospitalized after fire in West Town, CFD says . Heist movies are filled with criminals who want to pull one last big job and settle down. Tyre marks matched those found in Houston, and five men were eventually convicted. 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. If the world was empty, what would you do? . But one of the greatest films about Boston goes back to 1973. Its something Ive seen other directors do. [Chairman] Tom Werners a friend of mine. Welliver: I still think that The Town and Gone Baby Gone, thats the bar. It has a failed romance, a foiled heist, an unsolved crime, enough car chases for three movies, and yet is a coming-of-age film and a portrait of an eras end. Craig: We went into a bit of a quandary about the ending. At heart, its a story of social mobility. Affleck: I had great stunt drivers. I call them No R movies, Hogan says. Crockett: [Lively] would go out every night and hang out with Townies. 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. All three men were arrested and sent to prison. Afflecks second film as a director charts the fall of a mythic heist gang and the streets which made them. And so yes, they rob Fenway, but its not like hes running across the outfield getting tackled by Tom Brunansky with a bag of money in hand. Hamm: We could all go, hang out at the bar; me and Rebecca, and Renner, and Titus, that whole crowd. It eventually just blew up. Theyre stopping at an exactly certain point and if they go too far, peoples lives are at stakeits a very serious thing. He had participated in a bunch of these armored car robberies, and we had been talking for two hours, and time was almost up. Pretty much everyone on the set was an ex-con of some sort,Jeremy Renner told the LA Times. It has ended with the government getting most of the money. Forget it. He was quite clear. You dont know where they come from. But he also liked this book by Chuck Hogan. Crockett: The Fenway heist was really just a logistical kind of clusterfuck. One of those characters you love to hate and find sort of intoxicating and moving; all of those things at the same time. 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. 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. 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. Shortly after 9am on August 25 1994, an armoured car pulled up outside a NFS Savings Bank in Hudson, New York. It had to feel like Bruins. R Thriller Drama Crime Movie 2010. hd. 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. He was like, Thats me. I wasnt really in the movie world. He has that capacity, and I think that makes him a classic American filmmaker. Afflecks Doug MacRay, the leader of the gang, is the one whos gotten tired of the life. Affleck: In a world of increasing homogenization, having this fresh place that I think stood out, it was appealing. They had to look and sound like they just rolled out of Old Sullys at 2 a.m. on a Sunday. Neighborhood of Boston, yet lopped off every map of the city like a bastard cropped out of a happy family portrait. 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. Adrian was off the project. Hamm: Theres nothing weirder than an empty stadium. Like you didnt know what they were gonna do. Upon his exit, the bank employees activated Hes part of John Hamms FBI crew. Director: Ben Affleck. 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. Susan Matheson (costume designer): Ben at one point wears a zip-up track jacket that looks like a Bruins jacket. WebThe acquaintance, Richard Floyd McCoy, Jr., was a Vietnam veteran, a helicopter pilot, and an avid and capable skydiver. Everywhere we went people were so excited to see him. Thats how you drive a f----n caaar, declares the getaway driver, Gloansy (played by rapper Slaine). He poses as a florist, just like Dean OBanion, the Irish gang leader who celebrated St. Valentines Day with Al Capone in Prohibition Chicago. All three were from Charlestown. I was only comforted by the thought that no one with a Boston accent has ever actually read the Boston Phoenix. And its absolutely authentic. Hed be happy to settle down with his former hostage, Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall). Hogan: I had a friend who worked at Fenway Park, who snuck me in while they were shooting that whole sequence. 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. "Ben Affleck Played Me". In the film, the crew get away, largely thanks to the kind of driving that puts Daniel Craig to shame. 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. Theres so many shots and so quickly, that at the end, OK, what happened? Fury of the Gods Brings Back the "Shazamily": Inside DC's New Superhero Adventure, Scream 6's Brutal NYC Trip: "You Can't Trust Anyone" This Time, Cocaine Bear Is Not Just About a Killer "Coked-Up" Bear, It's Also an "Underdog Story", How Marvel's Wastelanders Podcast Created an Exciting Story with No Visual Safety Net, The Town: Ben Afflecks Heist Movie Love Letter to Boston. Los Angles police on high alert for grand theft and planned robbery in town. Jem would rather battle it out with the law than go back to prison. Thats the one moment that gives you a glimpse into how damaged and how profoundly broken Jem is. We literally took over Fenway. Do everything youre supposed to do, they wont be harmed.. Robert Brady, 40, was arrested in Charlestown shortly after he allegedly robbed the branch at 11:21 a.m. He said, Theyre looking for guys like you. And so I went over and I read a few lines, they took my picture. Affleck: Im like, Why the fuck do you think people go to hockey games? Swearing and fighting. This is their story. And a lot of older actors, [when theyre] told, Go here, do this, a lot of these guys are like, Fuck off. Hamm: It was an ambitious shoot and it was pulled off without a hitch. It can be a terrible experience, meaning you can interrupt somebody when theyre trying to have a nice moment, or they can be pleasant. And I said, Yeah, its just so great that he can come back and do this and dig in. Even with the shorter length hes afforded, Affleck tells multiple stories. They think theres no more serious white people in Charlestown, says local girl Kris (Blake Lively) early in the film. 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). (His co-star John Hamm once said thatwalking around Boston with Affleck was like walking around with the mayor.) I was like, Im not gonna do another movie in Boston. Douggie, played by Affleck, is a man trying not to die on the street he was born. Carter: Hes 6-foot-3. I went in to audition. Burke: I was at a point where I was still looking for what I was gonna do with my life. Hall: It was like being alongside Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in London. Were like, Wait, hes about the right size, height, and all that other, he could be Bens stand-in. And they led me into this little alleyway. 1 hospitalized after fire in West Town, CFD says . Its this movie and its already got a script. 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.. 10 Patty Hearst 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. And was critically acclaimed. 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 Police figures from 2010 showed that Charlestown accounted for barely 2 per cent of all Boston robberies (not just bank robberies). Ten years ago this week, Ben Affleck and his crew put on nun masks, robbed Fenway Park, and made the ultimate Boston movie. Crockett: Pete had a reputation for being kind of a hardass. In so many ways, the project came along at the exact right time. But it was very real. The Town stages heists in both places. 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. 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. Around 3 p.m., two armed men robbed the Hingham Institution for Savings on Charles Street, according to police spokeswoman Rachel McGuire. Affleck: Because it was the first time I was gonna star and direct, and because I didnt have a lot of money to pay a bunch of stars, I had the luxury of being able to just cast the best actors. 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. Because youre in a confined space, not a soundstage. What it allowed me to do is privately observe the prison population. 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