They were excited. So I read this new version of the script. In March 1995, two men held the guard of an armoured car at gunpoint as he tried to delivercash to a branch of the Bank of Boston on Massachusetts Avenue. Crockett: I vividly remember it. Affleck: I was very self-conscious about being limited to being the Boston guy. But as I was signing books afterwards, I see this guy coming up. And Ben Affleck was incredibly famous already. Blake Lively was sent into bars, real hoodlums were cast and a wedding party was spooked by gunfire. Gone Girl we shot a hundred days for a two-hour thriller. I sort of pretended that Charlestown was still the way it used to be. Burke: I was at a point where I was still looking for what I was gonna do with my life. 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? 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. 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? He made my job easy. We all want to chortle,like Jem,there goes college soccaaar, while shooting a guy we dont like in the knee. The car contained stolen money an 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. When its not, its predictable and obvious and trite. They were all from Charlestown. With no real attachments, Doug never has to fear losing anyone close to him. I was cutting out pieces of felt while Gina [Rhodes] was stitching themmaking, by hand, the fake Bruins logo. That was the moment where I realized that I could differentiate one bank robbery from another. In 2010, Affleck directed The Town, a drama about a gang of Charlestown armored car robbers. All three were from Charlestown. Stockard: I think the rule that Ben and I always kind of operated with, was like, Look, there are people like me and you who are very much from Boston who dont talk like that. Its not some weird thing that someone from Boston doesnt have a Boston accent. Hamm: Theres nothing weirder than an empty stadium. Many of them testified that they had grown tired of a life of stealing, of drugs, of broken relationships.. Its something Ive seen other directors do. 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. It was as simple as that. The feds, they get shuffled around all over the country. I could tell it was hard on Ben because literally going out to dinner was not really an option. 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. Burch: We did it during off days. Just because the echo in the ballpark. The imitators that his opus spawned, however, couldnt recreate what he managed to. Slaine: I think he was just really going for authenticity. 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. The annual average hovered above 10,000 for the next 15years. That was sort of the trick. 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. I thought I had something to add to it. Crockett: [Lively] would go out every night and hang out with Townies. And I hadnt seen it with the new one tacked on. And they told us all these stories, and all these fascinating things, and built up what this mythology was. Hogan: I had a friend who worked at Fenway Park, who snuck me in while they were shooting that whole sequence. 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. 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. Affleck: The Bruins have been extremely shortsighted and wrong with their policy, where if theres swearing or violence, you cant use their logo. See more. Hamm: We had this 15-day stretch where we had to shoot at Fenway. The first or second take that he did, Jeremy wanted to do it on his own. He was charged with armed bank robbery and making threats. 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. ). Especially when youre in a park thats not open to the public. 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. Do everything youre supposed to do, they wont be harmed.. Hes just great. Thats my quote that you used in the book. I was like, Oh man, whats up? He was excited. There were 150 people down there working. And I got a call saying that [Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal director] Adrian Lyne had read it and really wanted to do something with it. Afflecks Doug MacRay, the leader of the gang, is the one whos gotten tired of the life. Ex-felons are not allowed to hold even fake weapons. Affleck: Rebecca worked just as hard on the accent. We had bank robbers, we had career criminals, people that couldnt show up certain days because theyd be violating their parole. Ill tell you what Im gonna do. And so we were a little bit extra, extra respectful. 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. An alternate title for the film could be Ben Afflecks Boston, and no one would have had it any other way. Determined to get a better grip on the place, he brought in another local, his old school friend Stockard, and began an intensive period of research. Jem spent nine years in prison for killing a local thug who was planning to kill Doug. And thats just sort of the natural progression. Or do we want to give him a chance to live and a better life? He saw it and he was like, This is perfect. 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. It kind of had a post-apocalyptic feeling to it. I wanted to be a part of that. [Adrian Lyne did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article.]. They think theres no more serious white people in Charlestown, says local girl Kris (Blake Lively) early in the film. Director: Ben Affleck. Id go sit in Fenway and be the only guy there. 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. He said, Shes slightly different. Marblehead is a little chi-chi. 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. FBI figures reveal significantly higher crime rates pre-gentrification. They really loved the idea of putting these masked avengers in minivans. Particularly commercial success. Were like, Wait, hes about the right size, height, and all that other, he could be Bens stand-in. Craig: Adrian wanted 90 shooting days and $90 [million] to do it. Robert Brady, 40, was arrested in Charlestown shortly after he allegedly robbed the branch at 11:21 a.m. A U.S. District Court jury delivered guilty verdicts on 54 of 55 counts, including ones charging the five in the Aug. 25, 1994, robbery in Hudson in which two Stockard: Its a little weird being a piece of that, as somebody who wrote two of those movies. I came back and met with Ben, and I was so excited. He gets punished. I just still really thought that way. When I was a kid, I was scared to go there. Date Updated: Jan 18, 2023. 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. Theres like four people in the whole bar, which is a huge bar. They dont fink. 371K. He had robbed a couple of banks in Boston years before. Affleck was determined to make sure that his main cast could at least pass as true Massholes. Honestly, people just wouldnt have liked the movie [with my ending]. You didnt really know what was coming. Its kind of insular. An earlier version of this piece misspelled Roslindale. In Quentin Tarantinos Reservoir Dogs (1991), the crew had color-coded names; in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid they wore 10-gallon hats. 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. While they dont have a street name, FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) calls them The-Not-Fucking-Around-Crew. They plan their jobs meticulously, bleaching crime scenes to eradicate DNA traces, and nuking the security tapes in the banks own microwave. Ben wasnt in Boston. He also made sure to populate the movie with people who didnt have to fake their Boston accents. Ben Affleck (director/star): He had an adaptation that was very, very different and it was really focused on the love story. The movies center is Charlestown, right across the bridge from the rest of Boston, a legend in illicit locales. He gave me so much ammunition all the time to play off and to feel. They were shooting a scene. Its an action movie where you get to root for the bad guys. And man, he stood up really well to Ben. Slaine: Owen and I didnt have to listen to anybody. She was doing Gossip Girl, which at the time people thought like, Oh, thats just a CW Y.A. If you say its a bank heist movie, people are like, Ill see that. I think it was a great step. 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.. 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. I showed Ben the skeleton and Ben said to me, How can we make it look tougher? And I said, Why dont we put them in tactical gear? And so that started this riff, this juxtaposition of skeletons and tactical gear. David Crockett (producer): They read, and not saying who she was or what she was in, she did the [Boston] accent. The film makes Jem out to be the loose cannon in the arsenal, but he makes criminal sense. Even with the shorter length hes afforded, Affleck tells multiple stories. The one thing I miss about Boston is you saw a fistfight every day. Thats what makes it great. First of all, it was about 20 pages shorter. WebBank Robbery | Detective Mehul ( ) | Hindi Paheliyan | Hindi PaheliDetective Mehul or Mehul Jasoos is the best detective in town. It had to feel like Bruins. We all want to drive a f----n caaar like Gloansy. 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.. the movie the TOWN WAS Mde after SQUARE OFF T.V 249 subscribers Subscribe 6 Share 1.2K views 1 year I remember the librarians called me the day before, just to confirm. Hamm: It was an ambitious shoot and it was pulled off without a hitch. The story was much clearer and cleaner. One of those characters you love to hate and find sort of intoxicating and moving; all of those things at the same time. Hes crazy. Hes from Modesto, and hes kind of got that bulldog, kind of dirtbag sensibility. There was a script written. The robbers were waiting. Susan Matheson (costume designer): Ben at one point wears a zip-up track jacket that looks like a Bruins jacket. WebAccording to lore, when the Boston Police Department hears of a bank robbery happening in the city, the first thing they do is close the Charlestown bridge. 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. By the way? Hed be happy to settle down with his former hostage, Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall). 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. Theyre incarcerated. 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? 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