His father, Stephen MacRay (Chris Cooper) was a thief, just like his father, and all of Dougs friends were thick with thievery. Upon his exit, the bank employees activated So many broke the code, shattered the code. 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. Boston Police report arresting Thomas Hickey, 49, of Charlestown, for a Nov. 30 bank robbery on Austin Street in which he allegedly pushed an elderly man who was in line before him out of the way at a teller window.. Police report arresting 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. Ben Affleck made a minor heist movie classic with The Town, a thriller which shines light on the legendary history of Boston's Charlestown. This makes it a mini-epic. Needless to say, it really shook me up. Now, William shares his story after his Caught in Providence case went viral. Ive been on the force for 20 years and Im not looking for money or anything, but Im originally from Charlestown and I think I could be helpful. Shes like, Well, its really great to talk to you, we do have technical advisers and everything kind of lined up, but if you wanted to drop off a card or something like that. I said, Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. But it was very real. And she really focused specifically, not only on like, an American accent, but what it sounded like in Marblehead, which doesnt sound like Charlestown. And obviously it was in Bostonthat I was comfortable with. He was in his early 20s. Then they realized that were shooting a movie. Welliver: The character Dino was a cop who grew up in Charlestown. Were like, Wait, hes about the right size, height, and all that other, he could be Bens stand-in. Salon Professionals. Job Type:Part-Time. [It was] probably the most intense production that weve had at the ballparkfrom both an overall action perspective, but also the grandeur of it. Afflecks second film as a director charts the fall of a mythic heist gang and the streets which made them. Hed be happy to settle down with his former hostage, Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall). Blake Lively was sent into bars, real hoodlums were cast and a wedding party was spooked by gunfire. Craig: We went into a bit of a quandary about the ending. Date Updated: Jan 18, 2023. So we wrote parts for characters with Boston accents because we thought that was something that we could do well and that you saw done badly. The Town was originally set to be a three-and-a-half-hour-long epic directed by Fatal Attractions Adrian Lyne. They were about to buy it but they wanted to cut it, too. Three friends and acquaintances who had lied on the stand before testified against the five, along with four convicted bank robbers from Charlestown. You couldve just called me.. [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. 2 hours ago. One of those characters you love to hate and find sort of intoxicating and moving; all of those things at the same time. After all, there are only so many Massachusetts-set crime stories about Irish American antiheroes that you can tell. Affleck: In a world of increasing homogenization, having this fresh place that I think stood out, it was appealing. Afflecks crew of bank robbers needed genuine local flavor. . Affleck: I was able to get access to the FBI and the division that chased and caught most of these armored car robbers, particularly in Charlestown. Hamm: Theres nothing weirder than an empty stadium. 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. And he read and blew me away. Hes probably still there. It was taking a period of time that had passed and pretending it was still a reality. 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. I think its ripe for the picking. Bens standing there and hes doing his public relations things, and people are swarming him. He gave me so much ammunition all the time to play off and to feel. Its an action movie where you get to root for the bad guys. It went on to make $154 million (119 million) worldwide. They are holding their automatic weapons and wearing their disguises. It was sort of trying to be patrician and they had, and still do, a very distinct way of talking thats not actually common to most people in Massachusetts, in my experience. This isnt because those criminals made the sloppiest getaways. And this was toward the end of the shoot. Some residents felt it portrayed the locals as in the words of onequoted in The Christian Science Monitor, a bunch of dumb bums. The budget that we had previously was too high for us to make it. And then I realized, Maybe they think I can make movies more on the cheap.. He goes into the family business. Suspects at large after $100K stolen from North Side bank: authorities. 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.. The two banks Crockett: [Lively] would go out every night and hang out with Townies. I could tell it was hard on Ben because literally going out to dinner was not really an option. 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. I came back and met with Ben, and I was so excited. He was charged with armed bank robbery and making threats. He was given just 13 days, during which the sound of automatic gun fire spooked a wedding party that had hired Fenway as a venue and were apparently not made aware that there was also a film shoot in progress. The FBI says the vestibule was actually a "man-trap," designed to capture people like Hamilton. Its more general American but with a kind of East Coast, sort of slightly privileged vibe. So theres a whole range of accents. Just finding a place to park the trucks. But it couldnt be Bruins. 371K. The North End, Bostons Little Italy, is one of the citys smallest, densest, oldest neighborhoods; the asymmetrical Fenway Park, which fits snugly on a single block, is picturesque but impossibly cramped. He also ran afoul of the law himself, recruiting real ex-cons as extras and giving them guns. Do everything youre supposed to do, they wont be harmed.. 'The Town': Is Charlestown really America's 'bank robbery capital'? And they said, We like what you did, we think youre a good director and we believe in you. And I was kind of struck by the enthusiasm they had considering for the most part, Hollywood operates based on success. Oceans Eleven set the cinematic standard for a heist team. He loves her enough not to kill her, but not enough to testify. 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). 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. WebMassachusetts, U.S., Town Birth Records, 1620-1850. Everybody in attendance loved it; no car windows smashed or anything like that. 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. And they walked me over to this locked door and once you opened it, there was an old, dusty cobwebby circular staircase. 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? In 2010, Affleck directed The Town, a drama about a gang of Charlestown armored car robbers. Many of them testified that they had grown tired of a life of stealing, of drugs, of broken relationships.. 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. Cooper: Hes had a wonderful career, but [The Town] was a big shot in the arm for him. 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. He grew up in Cambridge,which was close enough to Charlestown for him to know a little about it. Afflecks Doug almost got out of his predetermined life. He poses as a florist, just like Dean OBanion, the Irish gang leader who celebrated St. Valentines Day with Al Capone in Prohibition Chicago. [Lively did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article. They were all from Charlestown. Well, not take notes, because you couldnt bring in a pencil. Burke: To go sit in the stands with Jeremy Renner in an empty stadium, it was surreal. We all want to chortle,like Jem,there goes college soccaaar, while shooting a guy we dont like in the knee. If the criminal culture that The Town associated with Charlestowns Irish-Catholic working-class community ever existed, it had dwindled away with the neighbourhoods traditional residents. Two guards -- Lawrence Johnson, 57, and Ronald Normandeau, 52 -- were shot to death while delivering money to the bank for North East Armored Transport Inc. of Manchester, N.H. But if Charlestowns present reality as a yuppie stronghold is easy to establish, its past status as a mythical crime mecca is difficult to entirely dismiss. Its not the same town as it was in the early 1990s and the 1980s.. Thats the one moment that gives you a glimpse into how damaged and how profoundly broken Jem is. Aaron Stockard (cowriter): Ben called me up and said, I know what I want to direct next. Crockett: He knew from the beginning that [Magloan] was gonna be Slaine. Slaine: Im convinced my hearing is still not the same after that film. Affleck turns it into a redemption story which beats the bank alarm at under two hours. 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. Witt: You dont want to go, like, Quantum of Solace at the beginning where you really dont even know where you are, where you shot it. The imitators that his opus spawned, however, couldnt recreate what he managed to. The bank robbers step out of their vehicle. I had never even been in a drama class or nothing like that. And Blake spent some time with her. My father insisted that I go over. Ill use them because Im from Boston to get into Fenway. 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. The Town captures the locale expertly, and the atmosphere masterfully. Carter: Hes 6-foot-3. Her performance was savaged by some critics it features the Bride Wars of Boston accents, Wesley Morris wrote in the New York Times but history has been kinder to her. Its ruined my life, literally, but Im proud.. It took him to the next level because it made him a filmmaker who also had box office appeal. And I was like, Why are the people who live here letting us do this? Theres something so tomb-like and archaic about Fenway. With no real attachments, Doug never has to fear losing anyone close to him. 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. There are three tiers of cells. And that was really thrilling to respond to. Jon Hamm (FBI special agent Adam Frawley): I knew he had some serious Boston cred. Affleck also embarked on a series of interviews with locals, including convicted robbers and members of the FBI violent crimes force. (His co-star John Hamm once said thatwalking around Boston with Affleck was like walking around with the mayor.) 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. In Quentin Tarantinos Reservoir Dogs (1991), the crew had color-coded names; in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid they wore 10-gallon hats. This shooting game is the newest brilliant sneaking FPS game. When Doug wakes Jem up in the middle of the night to do some damage and ask no questions, the only thing his friend wants to know is which car they should take. The sentence subtly shapes the viewers response to the daytime bank heist thatstarts the film. Craig: I was a struggling crime writer. In real life, they were not so lucky. And they told us all these stories, and all these fascinating things, and built up what this mythology was. [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. Welliver: He said, Hey, weve got great stories in this city that nobodys telling.. Affleck had a personal stake in the film that went beyond proving himself as a sophomore director. Jem is also Riff to Dougs Tony in West Side Story. If the world was empty, what would you do? And it is a bit like visiting royalty there, for me, in a way that I dont get in any other town or city in the world. Unfair or not, Charlestown had a reputation. Stockard: The movie that we thought about was [Michael Manns] Heat. But I certainly was familiar with his work. And so they said they had this script based on this book, and I said, OK, let me look at it. 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