The one thing I miss about Boston is you saw a fistfight every day. Craig: I was a crime writer already. The movie opened on September 17, 2010, to overwhelmingly positive reviews and eventually grossed $154 million at the worldwide box office. He was quite clear. And someone had forgotten to tell them that we were downstairs shooting. Ben Affleck (director/star): He had an adaptation that was very, very different and it was really focused on the love story. Find out more, The latest offers and discount codes from popular brands on Telegraph Voucher Codes, That's how you drive a f----n caaar: the second bank robbery was based on the 1995 Harvard Square heist, The moment when a cop sees a carload of nun-masked robbers and turns away was based on real life, Affleck sent Blake Lively to hang out in Charlestown bars to prepare for her role, Ben Affleck directs Jon Hamm on the set of The Town, Close, review: a soul-scorching portrait of boyhood friendship and loss, Whats on TV tonight: Stephen Fry: Willem & Frieda Defying the Nazis, Anorexic and more, When are the Oscars? [Chairman] Tom Werners a friend of mine. The FBI reports agents today arrested Anthony M. Hamilton, 24, of Charlestown, on charges he held up a Malden Citizens Bank branch in December, then shot his way out of a locked vestibule. Please review our, You need to be a subscriber to join the conversation. He didnt want to option it himself, so they set him up with [producer] Graham King, who got the option. But he pointed out the quote. Welliver: [Renner] switches it on and I love watching him work. Just let me go in. She opened the door and I just walked in and Ben was there and he just burst out laughing. Jon Hamm (FBI special agent Adam Frawley): I knew he had some serious Boston cred. These words flash up on screen at the opening of Ben Afflecks 2010 crime thriller,which follows a crew of Boston robbers as they rise fromlocal bank jobs to a hit on Fenway Park. This isnt because those criminals made the sloppiest getaways. With a relatively modest budget of $37 million, he made a classic heist flick thats well, porn for New Englanders: the heavy Boston accents; the scene in a Dunkin Donuts; and, oh yeah, the fact that a crew of robbers takes down Fenway Park. Stockard: The movie that we thought about was [Michael Manns] Heat. Afflecks Doug MacRay, the leader of the gang, is the one whos gotten tired of the life. But it really wasnt. He gave me so much ammunition all the time to play off and to feel. Whats better than that? 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. They ran mass auditions of up to 1,000 people at a time, Affleck recalls. Alexander Witt (second-unit director): We talked and we said, Lets do it as classic as possible.. The first bank robbery in Melrose was shot on location. 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. Carter: Hes 6-foot-3. Provo, UT, United States () -Provo Towne Center 1200 Towne Centre Blvd Ste B. Jem is his right hand muscle, and unquestioning backup. On Feb. 7, 2019, Brady pleaded guilty to bank robbery. Which I like, and its good, but I want to sort of put our perspective on it.. 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? They dont squeal. 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. But No R.. Hamm: It was an ambitious shoot and it was pulled off without a hitch. This makes it a mini-epic. He looks at them. He gets punished. I just still really thought that way. If youre gonna make a film of it, you have to add something to it, or try to. In 2010, estate agents were pitching waterfront redevelopments to young professionals and families. He loved it, optioned it. Besides being the lovable and erudite wrinkle in the scheme, she is not a townie, someone who was raised in the neighborhood. Id been in good ones and bad ones, but I knew that it took time, that they were the result of the assembly of a lot of little pieces. Afflecks second film as a director charts the fall of a mythic heist gang and the streets which made them. Affleck: Jeremy came in and was just awesome. (His co-star John Hamm once said thatwalking around Boston with Affleck was like walking around with the mayor.) The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. Affleck turns it into a redemption story which beats the bank alarm at under two hours. Solemn now: To The Town. You can come over to my house for dinner. It was just short of, If you need protection, were here for you. It was incredible. 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.. 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. The guy that I spoke with, who was kind of our head technical adviser from the FBI, was from Nebraska. Do everything youre supposed to do, they wont be harmed.. Theyre incarcerated. The only time I attempt it is when Im basically making fun of Ben, his character, about the Stah Mahket. 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. This really happened it was described to Affleck by a man serving time. I sort of pretended that Charlestown was still the way it used to be. Affleck had a personal stake in the film that went beyond proving himself as a sophomore director. 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. Hall: Youd be shooting this tiny little intimate scene, Ben and I, and Id look to my left and there were but thousands of people watching the set. I dont think you know how you sound. Actors tell me that thats one of the toughest ones they have to do. I was still in the 70s mindset of, Oh thats how you end one of these movies. Thats the thing, that theres a kind of ownership and its beautiful. He made my job easy. That whole character she did was really kind of based on her own preparation. 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. 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. If you say its a bank heist movie, people are like, Ill see that. I think it was a great step. Dont run away from it. We love that movie, dont be afraid of doing things that they did that worked. 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. Hogan: Warner Bros. didnt want to make the movie for that amount. Police figures from 2010 showed that Charlestown accounted for barely 2 per cent of all Boston robberies(not just bank robberies). 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. Its gentrified and diverse now, a local TV show host told The Christian Science Monitor. What if something happens to you? But hes so agile, and hes so athletic, and he has no fear, just absolutely no fear. 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. I kind of got to tiptoe around and watch them shooting from afar without them knowing I was there. He often has a very small crew. Affleck: The Yawkey Red Sox, Im sure, wouldve been impossible. Most of the heists in The Town were inspired by real crimes from that era. Affleck: He played that so deftly, and made that scene work so well, when hes sort of smiling and laughing, but theres so much menace underneath it. We all want to chortle,like Jem,there goes college soccaaar, while shooting a guy we dont like in the knee. 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. Although we dont have the exact figures for Charlestowns crime rate in the 90s, statistics suggest that there was indeed a surge in the rate of robberies in Hes like, What the fuck are you doing? In my imagination, hes always been Ben Affleck. Free shipping for many products! They dont fink. It went on to make $154 million (119 million) worldwide. So many broke the code, shattered the code. Dillinger assembled a crack team and he himself would hop over the bank booths like a jack-rabbit, hence his nickname. An earlier version of this piece misspelled Roslindale. Shortly after 9am on August 25 1994, an armoured car pulled up outside a NFS Savings Bank in Hudson, New York. And then he was out, so we were using him again for research. That was the moment where I realized that I could differentiate one bank robbery from another. 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. Citizens Bank, located at 315 Hanover St., was robbed at 9:10 a.m. and a Santander Bank at 287 Hanover St., was robbed a mere 4 minutes later. Agents with the FBI believe Gage Haws robbed five small town banks throughout northwest Ohio. That would be the equivalent of approximately $5 million today. And thats just sort of the natural progression. And Blake spent some time with her. All three were from Charlestown. Robert Brady, 40, was arrested in Charlestown shortly after he allegedly robbed the branch at 11:21 a.m. 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). Suspects at large after $100K stolen from North Side bank: authorities. In the 2000s, critically acclaimed, Irish Americancentered crime dramas like Clint Eastwoods Mystic River, Martin Scorseses The Departed, and Afflecks Gone Baby Gone had turned the Massachusetts capital into a Hollywood hot spot. Stockard: Ben and I went and spent a day with this FBI task force. He flew in. The Town (2010 Jon Hamm and Affleck centers on the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown. Welliver: Weve got a couple of great little homages to The Friends of Eddie Coyle when theyre in Fenway: You live at such and such a street Thats completely Alex Rocco talking to the bad guy and hes saying like, We have your wife and your children are in the house. Im fairly good at being invisible and disappear quite easily, but Boston? Welliver: If anything, people were kind of burned out on the New York gangster genre. I was like, Im not gonna do another movie in Boston. And its absolutely authentic. Chief Judge Frank Caprio#CaughtInProvidence#thetown#bankrobber See less Comments Most relevant Connie Ann My husband and I watched the movie right after I saw the Providence clip. And that was really thrilling to respond to. What is the penalty for bank robbery in mass? Craig: Adrian was at this really ambitious double-album phase of his career, and he didnt want to cut anything. They were excited. In 1995, The Boston Globe reported that the neighborhood was a community to which more armored car robbers are traced than any other in the country, according to FBI statistics. Hogan recalls reading that and filing it away. And well, why not nuns and tactical gear? CONCORD, N.H. -- A friend of two accused bank robbers testified yesterday as a prosection witness about a car found burning in Revere, the night of a 1994 robbery. Like you didnt know what they were gonna do. The top of his head was really messed up. And I hadnt seen it with the new one tacked on. 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