And I just came over to him and I was biting my tongue. Ben Affleck made a minor heist movie classic with The Town, a thriller which shines light on the legendary history of Boston's Charlestown. By contrast, Afflecks Doug MacRay heads a four-man gang. [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. 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. WebThe Town. Yes Charestown, MA is known for Bank robbers. Claire foretells the doom of Charlestowns criminal culture. All three were from Charlestown. Affleck said he picked up the term from a guy at New Sullys bar:I asked, Whats the thing with the Tunies? And he said the Tunies moved in and the Townies stole all their car stereos. Both robbers were shot, one in the back and one in the head, and the getaway driver promptly rear-ended a parked car. Alexander Witt (second-unit director): We talked and we said, Lets do it as classic as possible.. An alternate title for the film could be Ben Afflecks Boston, and no one would have had it any other way. Welliver: It [was] like doing photo shoots in front of Graceland with Elvis when Elvis was still alive. 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. 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. Chris Cooper (Stephen MacRay): Ben had me at prison. It was great. Something the character of James (Jeremy Renner), aka Jem, could appreciate. 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. WebBank Robbery | Detective Mehul ( ) | Hindi Paheliyan | Hindi PaheliDetective Mehul or Mehul Jasoos is the best detective in town. Crockett: [Lively] would go out every night and hang out with Townies. I knew that many of these bank robbers had gone to Catholic schools as children and been taught by nuns. Chay Carter (coproducer): We found a couple of real bank robbers that we did real research with, which is what these four [thieves] were based on. But it still has to be divvied up among the team. Thats what makes it great. 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. Jem is also Riff to Dougs Tony in West Side Story. I was cutting out pieces of felt while Gina [Rhodes] was stitching themmaking, by hand, the fake Bruins logo. He robbed banks but let the civilians in the banks keep their money. And so they said they had this script based on this book, and I said, OK, let me look at it. I read the adaptation, and it had been developed by Adrian Lyne, who I just worked with. Affleck: The Yawkey Red Sox, Im sure, wouldve been impossible. 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. Eventually, homogenization came for those tales, too. Director: Ben Affleck. Yeah, dont do the accent. I said, Well, wait, this show takes place in Boston and this guy is from Boston. He went, Yeah, yeah, but you know, we dont do the accent. I was kind of, Well, whats the fucking point of basing this in Boston? The Town (2010 Jon Hamm and Affleck centers on the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. Neighborhood of Boston, yet lopped off every map of the city like a bastard cropped out of a happy family portrait. Affleck: With Jeremy Renner, somebody said to me, Theres this guy, hes got this movie coming out that you should see, its supposed to be really good. I had somebody from Marblehead quote all her dialogue. It was taking a period of time that had passed and pretending it was still a reality. The blue-collar neighborhood produced more bank robbers and armored car thieves than anywhere else in the world, according to the movies prologue. As for Affleck, the success of The Town helped advance his career as a director. September 2009. In 2010, after his gang was eliminated, he fled to Tallahassee, But he also liked this book by Chuck Hogan. Jem would rather battle it out with the law than go back to prison. The gentrification of Charlestown is the huge pile of rotting wood fueling The Towns bonfire of crime. Her words had already come true. And he read and blew me away. Blake came in and read the scene and was amazing. Thats the thing, that theres a kind of ownership and its beautiful. In 2010, Affleck directed The Town, a drama about a gang of Charlestown armored car robbers. Crockett: I vividly remember it. No above-the-line people got paid any money. Everybody in attendance loved it; no car windows smashed or anything like that. Free shipping for many products! Its a hard movie to watch. You werent sure exactly what he was gonna do, or how he was gonna behave, because it wasnt Matt Damon, whos always the hero and always wins out in the end. But he could not have been happier to be there. Affleck: Jeremy came in and was just awesome. The guests ran for cover. We had bank robbers, we had career criminals, people that couldnt show up certain days because theyd be violating their parole. Rebecca Hall (Claire): I remember I had to fly to New York to meet Ben because I was based in London at the time, in the middle of this theater tour. We all sat there, and he did it. The bank robbers step out of their vehicle. Hed done his time. 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. Honestly, people just wouldnt have liked the movie [with my ending]. Hogan: Warner Bros. didnt want to make the movie for that amount. Carter: Ben actually went and sat down with the guy that his character was based on, and was able to see him and take notes in person. 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. Welliver: I had an experience several years before for a David Kelley show called The Practice which took place in Boston. Hall: I just remember him being so mercurial. Burke: To go sit in the stands with Jeremy Renner in an empty stadium, it was surreal. Affleck: The hothead friend. Burke: Ive heard people say, Oh, we dont sound like that! And Im like, I dont think you guys really listen to yourselves. . The Friends of Eddie Coyle starred Robert Mitchum in the title role and Peter Boyle as a hitman who ran a bar. And then he was out, so we were using him again for research. And I still am. 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. I said, Is there any way in hell that you can imagine that someone would ever rob a bank if theyre from Charlestown dressed as a nun? And the FBI agent I was meeting with turned to me and said, You know what, thats not a bad idea at all. And thats where that idea started. Hogan: I think weve played out the Irish Boston gangster thing. 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. 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.. Especially when youre in a park thats not open to the public. Chuck Hogans novel Prince of Thieves opens with a toast: To Charlestown, our one square mile of brick and cobblestone. Then they realized that were shooting a movie. Two armored car guards were shot to death in New Hampshire in 1994 during one of the robberies. Craig: I lived in Somerville for a while in the 90s. And so Adrian developed it for quite some time. I had a darker ending in it, like a real 70s ending, where Doug dies. And Major League Baseball was open to itthat was what I was really afraid of. 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. The 6-foot-tall Dorchester-born rapper is an intimidating physical presence with a raspy grumble of a voice flavored with a thick Boston accent. Forget it. I could tell it was hard on Ben because literally going out to dinner was not really an option. Bill Simmons saysthere were a lot of Boston ladies like Kris in real life. It seems likely that Lively had met a few. Affleck: Jeff Robinov and [worldwide marketing president] Sue Kroll were working at Warner Bros. at the time, and they asked to have a meeting with me. The imitators that his opus spawned, however, couldnt recreate what he managed to. R Thriller Drama Crime Movie 2010. hd. And they were like, Just so you know, weve had some calls and threats of violence. People didnt know what the book was, I think they were expecting something that would really knock Charlestown. Free shipping for many products! And they told us all these stories, and all these fascinating things, and built up what this mythology was. Every take had the same amount of tension and edge but it was just all over the place. When I was a kid, I was scared to go there. 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!. 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. 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. Hes maybe four people away. After managing to evade a manhunt and escape to Florida, his character says goodbye to Claire via a letter. The productions biggest scoop, location-wise, was being granted permission to shoot the Fenway Park heist scene in the real Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. 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. But the Red Sox were definitely in the spirit of, This is gonna be fun. Cooper: It was kind of this crisp evening. But how many people, speaking frankly, want to see a movie about a child murderer? The Ringers Bill Simmons, who lived in Charlestown for eight years, said on The Rewatchablesthat, of all films, this one makes me the most nostalgic for Boston. The bars in the film are real Charlestown bars:Old Sullys (for townies), where Douggie and Jem meet early on, and New Sullys (for yuppies), where Hamms FBI officer approaches Niki. Hamm: It was impressive. His first reaction is to take her out of the equation.. Ill tell you what Im gonna do. And so we were a little bit extra, extra respectful. So thats cool. That would be the equivalent of approximately $5 million today. And I thought, Not only is she the best actress for the part, shes gonna be able to really surprise people.. MacRay is a narcissist who uses Jems sister Krista (Blake Lively) for bathroom quickies, and Claire as a loophole. He has that capacity, and I think that makes him a classic American filmmaker. He has a certain thing in that town. Witt: Its not like New York or Los Angeles where you have wider streets. I came back and met with Ben, and I was so excited. He looks at them. And thats just sort of the natural progression. Hamm: Another smart move by Ben was to populate this movie with people that have an actual, real-life connection to these things. This shooting game is the newest brilliant sneaking FPS game. At one point we even had Brad Pitt ready to do it so it was really close. Or rather, close enough for himto understand how little he knew about it. He had the beginnings of the accent, clearly he had the ability to do ita bad Boston accent would ruin that part. Every large theft needs an inside man, but Inside Man (2006), directed by Spike Lee, had Clive Owen as a bona fide genius. The Boston Police A decade after establishing his Boston bona fides by cowriting and appearing in Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon, he was offered a chance to adapt Prince of Thieves for the screen. 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. 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. You woke me up.. He loved it, optioned it. The way we did that was to make the days inexpensive. I dont know exactly what happened, but I know that the option was running out. They set up a date and Jeremy Renner and I both arrived at Walpole to go through the screening. They went to jail because there were cracks on the pavement, leaks on the street. Stockard: Ben had a good relationship with the Red Sox. They blew it up and both sides of the street, all the brick buildings were totally covered in soot. When he took over the project Fatal Attractions Adrian Lyne was originally down to direct local boy Affleck decided he wanted to make this as much of a Boston filmas he possibly could. We had this huge screen over the third base dugout. It at least had that upswing. They were excited. WebMassachusetts, U.S., Town Birth Records, 1620-1850. But does it? Although it certainly felt like he was. I sort of pretended that Charlestown was still the way it used to be. The 1995 article in The Boston Globe, which inspired the films prologue, actually noted more armored car robbers are traced to Charlestown than any other neighborhood in the country. 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! See more. But the machines they use to clean the streets are very loud and we were cleaning the streets at like 7 in the morning and out of this apartment building comes Jonathan Papelbon. 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.. Stockard: Its a little weird being a piece of that, as somebody who wrote two of those movies. Affleck: Hockeys such a big thing in Charlestown. WebWhitey Bulger and his friendss and some of the Charlestown robbers operated from Marshall Street Garage was actually in Winter Hill, Somerville. Itd be good to have him around for authenticity. Hes in the movie. Its kind of like a safety thing. Jason Bourne kills the bad guys. He grew up in Cambridge,which was close enough to Charlestown for him to know a little about it. Its not a super cheap movie but its not expensive like a studio movie. I was doing that. In the film, the crew get away, largely thanks to the kind of driving that puts Daniel Craig to shame. And this was toward the end of the shoot. The Town may have taken a small place with a complicated history and declared it a cesspool of violent criminals but they arent dumb ones. Hed be happy to settle down with his former hostage, Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall). This is their story. Burke: There were the most narrow streets you could find in the North End. It had to feel like Bruins. She prepped for that for God knows how long. He knows how to get a story from one place to another and connect all the dots in between so that you are in it and immersed in it and believe it and its thrilling and its really entertaining, as well as being serious. 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