Hes just great. I was only comforted by the thought that no one with a Boston accent has ever actually read the Boston Phoenix. And I thought, Not only is she the best actress for the part, shes gonna be able to really surprise people.. I was up there for what Im sure was a good half hour. Salon Professionals. What is the penalty for bank robbery in mass? Hamm: It was an ambitious shoot and it was pulled off without a hitch. Nothing kills a Boston-set movie like bad Boston accents. 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. Hes like, What the fuck are you doing? And Blake spent some time with her. Upon his exit, the bank employees activated So many broke the code, shattered the code. So I read this new version of the script. And that was really thrilling to respond to. An alternate title for the film could be Ben Afflecks Boston, and no one would have had it any other way. From 1874 to 1921 it is estimated that Starr robbed over 21 banks, stealing $60,000 in cash. Rebecca Halls character asking Douggie why the kids with whom she volunteerscall her a tunie? NO NAME GANG: CHARLESTOWN bank robbers. They dont squeal. And he got really excited. He had really bad scars. WebWhitey Bulger and his friendss and some of the Charlestown robbers operated from Marshall Street Garage was actually in Winter Hill, Somerville. Everybody in attendance loved it; no car windows smashed or anything like that. The Town captures the locale expertly, and the atmosphere masterfully. According to FBI statistics And this was toward the end of the shoot. Its not The Godfather of caper films, but it is a heist movie must-see. We all want to be from Douggies Charlestown and we all know its a fantasy. Both robbers were shot, one in the back and one in the head, and the getaway driver promptly rear-ended a parked car. The city also set the scene for Clint Eastwoods Mystic River, and Afflecks directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, both based on books by local crime novelist Dennis Lehane. Staging a chase scene in the North End was difficult, but shooting a robbery inside and around Fenway Park was unprecedented. 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 [Lively did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article. I had a darker ending in it, like a real 70s ending, where Doug dies. But it still has to be divvied up among the team. They get their tips and kick up to local crime lord Fergus Fergie Colm, played by veteran character actor Pete Postlethwaite. He was doing a long sentence. 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. I watched a screening with a different ending and it hadnt been testing well. Afflecks crew of bank robbers needed genuine local flavor. And then a few months later I got a call and they were like, Oh, we want you to come back in and audition for the director. I show up at this office in Cambridge to go in and read and all of a sudden I see Ben Affleck walk in. The guests ran for cover. The feds, they get shuffled around all over the country. (His co-star John Hamm once said thatwalking around Boston with Affleck was like walking around with the mayor.) They happened to be casting this action movie across the street from where I live. 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. Affleck: The Bruins have been extremely shortsighted and wrong with their policy, where if theres swearing or violence, you cant use their logo. And so I think at first we were sort of like, Oh, how can we not be Heat? And at some point we said, Look, embrace Heat. Suspects at large after $100K stolen from North Side bank: authorities. The Town stages heists in both places. Culture Editor Tony Sokol is a writer, playwright and musician. Heres how it works in fucking Charlestown: Youre born in Charlestown, you play fucking hockey and you rob. And I went, OK, that sums it up.. Chuck Hogan (author, Prince of Thieves): When the book came out, I was scheduled to do a reading at the Charlestown Public Library. The gang torches their escape cars and their transfer vehicles. Alexander Witt (second-unit director): We talked and we said, Lets do it as classic as possible.. Cooper: Hes had a wonderful career, but [The Town] was a big shot in the arm for him. I went in to audition. Even with the shorter length hes afforded, Affleck tells multiple stories. Hamm: Another smart move by Ben was to populate this movie with people that have an actual, real-life connection to these things. Jem is his right hand muscle, and unquestioning backup. Or why Affleck hired him to play a Charlestown bank robber in his new movie The Town.. Crockett: As he puts it, you have so many fame chips you can use. Cooper: I think he was just having a ball with this character. He said, Shes slightly different. Marblehead is a little chi-chi. I knew that many of these bank robbers had gone to Catholic schools as children and been taught by nuns. But John is obviously a much bigger guy. But he also liked this book by Chuck Hogan. Los Angles police on high alert for grand theft and planned robbery in town. 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. 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! 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.. After a seven-day trial, they were convicted on 54 of 55 counts of robbery, including one which resulted in the death of two armored car guards. Affleck: The only other thing Ill say about the chase sequence, it definitely reminded me of Jimmy Tingle in the 80s. So I was thrilled. Do everything youre supposed to do, they wont be harmed.. 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. You know, the Kennedys kind of had their own weird accent. Its not just an accent, its more of an attitude. Jason Bourne kills the bad guys. Welliver: The character Dino was a cop who grew up in Charlestown. 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. Afflecks second film as a director charts the fall of a mythic heist gang and the streets which made them. WebThe crew consisted of Doug MacRay, Jem Coughlin, Desmond Elden, and Albert MacGloan, four veteran Charlestown bank and armored car robbers. 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. Theyd closed off the street, working on this story that I had cooked up in my bedroom at home. That was the most important part, because he could so easily lapse into clich. In the history of crime, the best crew was headed by John Dillinger. 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. Many of them testified that they had grown tired of a life of stealing, of drugs, of broken relationships.. Job. Hall: I just remember him being so mercurial. There was a script written. The one thing I miss about Boston is you saw a fistfight every day. But I certainly was familiar with his work. 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. 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. Welliver: I still think that The Town and Gone Baby Gone, thats the bar. Oct 31, 2012. 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. 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. Its not wedding bells which break up the old gang in Ben Afflecks The Town, its witness protection. During the Cold War he had a great joke: The Russians wont invade Boston, theres nowhere to pahk! I thought, Yup, theres a lot of truth to that. That was our greatest hurdle. Affleck: Blake Lively took the train from New York. And there were probably a couple of guys there who were still robbing banks.. Download Bank Robbery missions 2017 and enjoy it on your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. 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! That was the moment where I realized that I could differentiate one bank robbery from another. Cooper: It was kind of this crisp evening. He is the TV Editor at Entertainment. All three were 25 or under. Some of the scenes were shot on the real crime locations depicted. Police figures from 2010 showed that Charlestown accounted for barely 2 per cent of all Boston robberies (not just bank robberies). Tuesday October 30, 2012. According to FBI statistics from the same year, the entire state of Massachusetts had fewer than 3 per cent of all bank robberies nationwide. It just read like a good old-fashioned, kind of 70s cop movie, where the good guys are the bad guys and the bad guys are the good guys. Craig: I was a struggling crime writer. The romance in the middle of the film is only there to delineate the boundaries between heist film and crime procedural. It eventually just blew up. Affleck: I certainly didnt want to set myself up to fail, say yes I could do something, shortchange myself [and] produce a substandard sequence because I didnt have the time. In the 70s, New York was that. Suspects at large after $100K stolen from North Side bank: authorities. 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. Hes not someone that blends in easily. I could tell it was hard on Ben because literally going out to dinner was not really an option. The cunning group is robbing city banks to steal money and making the getaway with diamond Heist. But not everyone was happy with the image of Charlestown given toa generation of moviegoers. 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. He also ran afoul of the law himself, recruiting real ex-cons as extras and giving them guns. I said, Look, you know, I understand that youre making this movie about robbers out of Charlestown. I lived in South Boston, Roslindale. That would be the equivalent of approximately $5 million today. And so if you cant do it, just dont do it. MacRay is a narcissist who uses Jems sister Krista (Blake Lively) for bathroom quickies, and Claire as a loophole. He was like, Thats me. Everyone was making New York movies. 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. Its just great that hes from here and hes back. And this woman looked at me and shes like, Hes not from heah! OK, hes from, like, three miles away. And we had a lot of days for a movie that was relatively inexpensive. Affleck: I was very self-conscious about being limited to being the Boston guy. NEW YORK -- The mystery began when a Boston ex-con dropped dead on a New York train platform with a backpack stuffed with $180,000. Hall: It felt like cinema in the classic sense. Craig: We went into a bit of a quandary about the ending. 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. Theyre stopping at an exactly certain point and if they go too far, peoples lives are at stakeits a very serious thing. In addition to including the statistic about Charlestowns armed-robbery predilection, the preface of Prince of Thieves features a quote in The Globe by an anonymous Townie. 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. After all, there are only so many Massachusetts-set crime stories about Irish American antiheroes that you can tell. Cooper: I dont know Jeremys height, but Ben is a pretty big boy. Jem spent nine years in prison for killing a local thug who was planning to kill Doug. For the film, Affleck talked to locals, visited the maximum-security prison MCICedar Junction, and consulted with the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force in Boston. 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. Welliver: I had an experience several years before for a David Kelley show called The Practice which took place in Boston. This is their story. What it allowed me to do is privately observe the prison population. And everyone was like, Ah, you cant, really. Douggie, played by Affleck, is a man trying not to die on the street he was born. The two banks Were like, Wait, hes about the right size, height, and all that other, he could be Bens stand-in. Im gonna do a movie about Iran.. Every large theft needs an inside man, but Inside Man (2006), directed by Spike Lee, had Clive Owen as a bona fide genius. Affleck: Its parochial and kind of a small town in some ways. "Ben Affleck Played Me". It went on to make $154 million (119 million) worldwide. And more than anything, just from a noise standpoint, it was kind of unique. The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Affleck: Jeremy came in and was just awesome. They wore wigs, fake bears and masks; in the film, brilliantly, these became nun masks and habits. 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. Which took place in Boston no one would have had it any other.., like, Ah, you play fucking hockey and you rob, weve had calls... Afflecks crew of bank robbers needed genuine local flavor Blake Lively took train! 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Bizarre in the film could be Ben Afflecks the Town, its witness protection brilliantly these... Bells which break up the old gang in Ben Afflecks Boston, theres nowhere to!! First we were sort of like, Oh, Im Detective such and such fucking hockey and you.. Different ending and it was an ambitious shoot and it hadnt been testing well make it Look tougher think a.
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